Balance Sheet Reports - how to interpret positive or negative balances for Liability Accounts?

Hi koshyckoshy,

If Trade Creditors is showing as ($19k) on the Balance Sheet, the brackets usually mean that account is sitting in a negative balance position as at that date, rather than showing a normal amount owing. In practice, that can happen if there’s been an overpayment, a supplier credit, or a payment posted directly to the Trade Creditors account instead of being matched through the usual bill/payment flow.

The best next step is to run the General Ledger Detail report for that same Trade Creditors account using the same date as the Balance Sheet. That will show the exact transactions behind the figure and usually makes it much easier to spot what caused the balance to appear in brackets.

Regards,
Earl

Hi koshyckoshy,

That definitely sounds unusual. From what we can see, this may need a closer look on the back end, as it does not look like a straightforward issue from your side. The best next step would be to get in touch with our support team so they can investigate it properly and check what is happening behind the scenes. You can reach them on Live Chat via our virtual assistant, MOCA or by submitting a support case via MyAccount.

Regards,
Earl

HUGE help to me. Thank you so much for your answer AND ALSO YOUR ADVICE on how to fix it!!

Early:  a further question

• I have just started the MYOB file
• When reviewing all journal entries - I can only see very, very few Trade Credtor entries that are marked as being a DR. All of them are actually recorded as CR - which means that my trade credit balance cannot and should never be a "negative amount". 
• Q: Would you be able to offer any pointers on this issue?

Hi koshyckoshy,

That does sound confusing. If those Trade Creditors entries are showing as credits, you generally wouldn’t expect the liability balance to show as a negative figure. If it is, that usually means something on the payables side needs checking rather than the Balance Sheet working as expected.
 

A good next step is to run the Balance Sheet and the Payables Reconciliation for the same date and compare the Trade Creditors totals. If they don’t line up, it’s worth checking for things like transactions posted straight to the payables control account, money transactions coded there, or timing issues such as future-dated entries. More information here: Receivables, payables or inventory out of balance

Regards,
Earl

I checked every single transaction for the entire year. There were not many. All of them are good. Yet the balance is negative.:

For recording bills the transactions amount to this:

DR: Expense Account

        CR: Accounts Payable.

And any payments of bills:

DR Accounts Payable

       CR: Cash Account

All entries were done by my accountant, so i highly doubt they posted straight to the payables account. Even if they did the journal entries are all as I have noted above. I looked at the opening balance(s) and this doesn't make any sense to me. I am thinking that it is a bug in the MYOB software, because this happened in 2016................can you think of any other possibility besides what you listed above in that link?

Hi koshyckoshy,

Thanks for laying that out so clearly, that does sound confusing. If the bills and payments are all following the usual entries you’ve listed, then yes — another possibility is that this goes further back than the current transactions.
 

If the negative balance has been sitting there since 2016, the next things I’d be looking at are the Trade Creditors opening balance, whether the payables linked account was changed at some point, or whether the issue has been carried forward from an older migrated or purged file.

So in this case, it may be less about the current bills and payments being entered incorrectly, and more about a historical balance issue sitting behind the scenes.
 

The best next step would be to run the Payables Reconciliation for progressively earlier dates to find when it first went out of balance, then compare the Trade Creditors opening balance against an earlier backup if you have one. Receivables, payables or inventory out of balance

Regards,
Earl

So in this case, it may be less about the current bills and payments being entered incorrectly, and more about a historical balance issue sitting behind the scenes.

I have checked this as well. The problem is that 2026 is the first year of the MYOB file. There are no preceeding years. And then, the opening balance of the first year cannot account for the massive negative balance - because the opening balance is only ($2000) - or a negative 2000 balance for accounts payable.

Do you think this is worth investigation as a MYOB bug? Is there a support channel for this type of esoteric problem. It's really very, very strang e.