Trial Balance Reclass Entries

by Mary
(ON, Canada)

If a chartered accountant firm has returned the year end trial balance & it shows entries in the Reclass column, what does this mean?


Since the bookkeeper would have to post these entries out of the original accounts to the reclassed accounts, why does the accountant not just use adjusting journal entries for such transfers of amounts?



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Hi Mary,

Hmmm, from what you say, it sounds like the accountant shared his/her working trial balance with you. A glance at it lets you very quickly see what accounts were adjusted which is useful information.

It also sounds like you didn't receive the actual adjusting entries. As it would be much easier to just book the adjusting entries, I'd ask the accountant for them.

Maybe some of the Bookkeeping-Essentials.com readers can share if they also receive the working trial balance from accountants ... in addition to the actual adjusting entries.

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Jun 17, 2011
 Reclass column on year end trial balance
by: Mary

Hi again & thanks for your comments.

Actually I do have the year end trial balance which has these columns: Prelim, Adj's, Reclass & Rep. I do also have the adjusting journal entries from the accountant which show up in the Adj's column. There are no written journal entries for the amounts in the Reclass column.

My guess is that the accountants are assuming I will just know to post these reclass entries as all they do is move amounts from one account to another. For example: the current portion of long-term debt has been moved from the long term liability account to the current liability account.

I just have never seen it done as a Reclass item; other times when this has occurred, there has been an actual journal entry.

What have others seen & done? Look forward to more comments. Thanks.
Jun 17, 2011
 Reclassification Journal Entries
by: Lake

Hi Mary,

I think I agree with you. The important thing is to make sure your ending trail balance matches the accountant's final trial balance.

If that means you have to "create" the reclassification entries yourself, do it.

I much prefer to have their actual journal entries to post ... so that next year, they can see I posted all of their adjusting entries.
Aug 14, 2017
 Prelim numbers
by: Anonymous

So with the preliminary numbers should they be your ending balances before you sent the books off to the accountant ?

Mine has prelim adjs adj and then annotations
Oct 26, 2017
 Prelim Numbers
by: Lake

Hmm I'm not sure what you mean. You need to print a trial balance for your accountant as at the last day of your fiscal year.


Depending on what you hired the accountant to do ... you should get back a final trial balance along with adjusting entries for you to post.

After you have entered the adjusting entries, print your trial balance again and make sure it matches the final trial balance the accountant gave you.

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