There really is no harm in running the G/L Rebalance function whenever you like–so long as one knows what to expect.

Usually when a Rebalance creates unexpected results it’s because not all periods were either locked or unlocked. It’s like a waterfall from one period to the next.

The moral is this: Locked periods are protected. Unlocked periods are not.

So… whenever you make prior period entries, you must unlock all periods from that prior period up through the Current Period otherwise bad things will happen.

Now… if you did all that and the numbers are still ‘wrong’, then it -must- be that they were wrong before running the Rebalance. In other words, the Rebalance simply retotals the transactions in the system. Many times, we’ve seen customers make adjusting entries to make the system ‘correct’ without running a Rebalance first to get a proper starting point. Oops. So, in fact, the Rebalance is a -good- thing to do before making any prior period entries.

If you run G/L Rebalance and find that your Trial Balance is out of balance, try this…

1. Find the last period where your numbers are expected.
2. Unlock all periods between that and the Current Period.
3. Run the Rebalance.

Any better? If not, start with the first period after the last known good period.