Run the Balance Sheet

The Balance Sheet summarizes what your business owns (assets), what it owes (liabilities), and the owners’ stake (equity) for a date range. It’s a standard financial statement that accountants, lenders, and owners expect at year-end, and it’s the report that ties together your bank balances, receivables, deposits, and recorded income and expenses into one picture.

When to use it

• Year-end close, or whenever an accountant or lender asks for a balance sheet.
• Confirming that what you’re holding (bank balances, deposits) lines up with your books.
• A periodic check that your records are internally consistent — the balance sheet only balances when the underlying data is complete.

Before you start

• None. The Balance Sheet is built automatically from your bank balances, outstanding charges, deposits, prepaid rent, and recorded income and expenses. It’s most accurate when your records are up to date and your bank accounts are reconciled.

Steps

1. In the left sidebar, click Reports.
2. Under Financial Statements, click Balance Sheet.
3. In the Company dropdown, choose your company name. (Unlike most reports, the Balance Sheet covers your whole company, not a single property — there’s no per-property option, because assets like bank accounts and equity are company-level.)
4. Set the Range select (date range) using the from and to date boxes. It defaults to the last twelve months. The to date is effectively the “as of” date the balance sheet is calculated to.
5. Click Submit. The report can take a few seconds to calculate, since it pulls together many parts of your books.

What you’ll see

The report is organized into the three standard balance-sheet sections:

• Assets — what the business holds: your bank account balances, undeposited funds (payments received but not yet deposited), and accounts receivable (what tenants still owe you).
• Liabilities — money you’re holding that isn’t yours to keep, such as security deposits held and prepaid rent (rent paid for a period that hasn’t started yet), plus other current liabilities.
• Equity — the owners’ stake: owner contributions, net income for the period, retained earnings from prior periods, and opening balance equity.

At the bottom, total liabilities plus total equity should match total assets. That equality is the defining check of a balance sheet — it’s what “balancing” means.

Tips

• If the two sides don’t match, it usually points to incomplete data rather than a problem with the report — for example, undeposited payments, an unreconciled bank account, or a missing opening balance. Reconciling your bank accounts and bringing records up to date is the fix.
• Security deposits and prepaid rent show up as liabilities (not income) because they’re money you’re holding on someone else’s behalf until it’s earned or returned — that’s the expected accounting treatment.
• Allow a moment after clicking Submit — the report does a fair amount of calculation before it displays.
• To print or save, use your browser’s print command (Ctrl+P / Cmd+P) once the results are on screen, and choose “Save as PDF” if you want a file.

Related articles

• Run a report (overview)
• Run the Cash Flow report
• Read the Financials overview