Common questions about the Lacerte Trial Balance Utility

The Lacerte Trial Balance Utility is a tool within Lacerte designed to maximize productivity for accountants' year-end tax customers. It includes integration with most accounting software through Excel and imports directly from QuickBooks and EasyACCT.  You can use this utility to make adjusting journal entries, print trial balance reports and financial statements, and utilize SmartMap on all imported files.

SmartMap is a feature within the Trial Balance Utility that removes most of the setup work required to assign tax pages and lines to trial balance accounts originating from QuickBooks and EasyACCT. This feature is available free of charge.

The expanded functionality within the Lacerte Trial Balance Utility allows you to...

• Integrate with any accounting software that can export to Excel
• Set up your own chart of accounts from scratch
• Make book and tax adjusting journal entries
• Apply the SmartMap technology to all your files
• Generate a basic balance sheet or income statement
• Export to Excel

... and much more.

This tool includes important time-saving features like copying a chart of accounts from one client to another, auto-recognition of account names, and carrying over accounts and journal entries from year to year. This feature is available for an additional charge and is licensed separately from Lacerte.

SmartMap is a tool that uses patent-pending innovation to remove much of the time-consuming setup involved in assigning tax pages and lines to trial balance accounts. Below is some useful information about SmartMap:

• The SmartMap database auto-assigns tax pages and lines, so most of the setup work is done automatically.
• SmartMap thinks for you by presenting the Lacerte input screens, in order, to drag-and-drop accounts.
• The SmartMap database works across the entire tax module, so any assignments you make are saved and applied to all other clients.

The Trial Balance Utility works for the following tax modules:

• Individual (1040)
• Partnership (1065)
• Corporate (1120)
• S-Corporate (1120S)
• Fiduciary (1041)
• Exempt Org. (990)

See the video below for more information about using this tool.

porting data within the Trial Balance Utility, the prior year balances and prior year mapping data is no longer included, and two companies are listed when you click on the "Open" button in the upper left-hand corner.

This occurs when the file name does not match the one utilized in the prior year.  When the file names are different, Lacerte Trial Balance Utility will create a new trial balance for the newly imported data. The original data still exist and can be viewed by clicking the "Open" button in the upper left corner of the Lacerte Trial Balance Utility.

Please ensure your file name matches EXACTLY the same as what was utilized in the prior year.

 Note: On  Excel files, the name of the worksheet tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet must match what was utilized in the prior year as well.

Some Common Items that Create a Difference are:

• Dates utilized within the file name (e.g. "Company_A_2012.QBW")
• Different naming convention (e.g. "Company A.xls" rather than "Company_A.xls")
• A different file name

Note: Verify that the correct form is selected, such as 1065, 1120S, 8825, et cetera.  If the company is linked to different form from last year, then the mapping may be incorrect.

This typically occurs when data has previously been posted to the return and the data has been manually removed from within Lacerte.  Trial Balance Utility still has a record of the amount having been posted and the steps below clear out that data so that number can be reposted.

From the Tax Line Assignments Tab inside Trial Balance Utility:

1. Hit Ctrl + A to select all of the accounts.
2. Hit the Unpost Selected button to unpost all of the items.
3. Close Trial Balance Utility without reposting the data.
   • Note: is the data if posted again, you will need to begin again with step 1.
4. Re-Open the Trial Balance Utility
5. Hit the Post to Tax Return button.

If the account(s) is still not posting: Hover over the Options column for the Account that is not posting and make sure it does not indicate NOT TO POST.