Aged Account Payable report does not agree with Balance Sheet AP

Question

My AP on the Balance sheet is 5 times the Aged AP report. Both tech support and my account rep say this is correct. Tech sent me an email saying:: 
 " The balance sheet shows a running total of all debits and credits for an account. Both paid and unpaid transactions are listed on the balance sheet. The aged payables reports shows a total of what is owed " 
 I think the Balance Sheet AP should show what is owed at that time! ... and not include invoices that have already been paid. For me, The Debits and Credits seem fine, but the beginning balance in the Balance Sheet AP is WAY OFF! 
 Is there any way to clean out these old invoices (GEN) that have already been paid in order to make the Aged AP report agree with the G/L report? 
 or to adjust the beginning balance? The same inconsistency occurs in the Receivables.

StephenC · Answer

The Aged AP report is supposed to match the Accounts Payable on the balance sheet. It's quite concerning to me that there are techs who don't understand that. 
 It's good that the current debit/credit activity looks fine. That indicates that your current procedures are correct and the problem is coming from the beginning balance. Assuming that the Aged Payables report is correct, here are a few things you should check. 
 
 Look to see how far back the problem goes.This will help you narrow down your search for the source of the problem. 
 Check to see if you're consistently off by the same amount, or if it varies from month to month. If the balance is off by the same amount every month, then you know everything is working correctly now and you just need to adjust the beginning balance. 
 Run an aged AP report. Go into the options and select a filter for AP Account ID, set it equal to the balance sheet account that it is supposed to match. If the report matches the balance sheet after setting the filter, then you know you have transactions with the wrong account in the A/P Account field. That problem will correct itself once all of those invoices are paid. But you need to make sure it doesn't keep happening in the future. 
 Run a General Ledger report for the AP account. Normally the "Jrnl" column should only show PJ (purchase journal) and CDJ (cash disbursements journal). One exception would be if you had a refund from a vendor, you may see a CRJ (cash receipts journal) entry. Anything else is probably something that needs to be corrected. As Tom1410 mentioned, if a payment (CDJ) is posted directly to the AP account instead of being applied to an invoice, that will also throw the balance off; in other words, the AP account should never be used on the Apply To Expenses tab of the Payments window. 
 
 Those are the most common problem areas. If the problem goes back to a previous year, you will probably need to post a general journal entry to correct the balance of the AP account. I would recommend you talk with your accountant about what the offsetting account should be, since it sounds like it will be a significant amount

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Aged Account Payable report does not agree with Balance Sheet AP

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