General Ledger Overview

Last reviewed: June 9, 2026

On this page

The General Ledger report shows account activity, opening balances, running balances, and ending balances for a selected date range.

What this screen is for

Use General Ledger to review detailed accounting activity by account. The report is read-only. It does not post entries, close periods, or change balances.

Use Journal Entries Overview when a finance-approved manual entry needs to be posted.

Screen paths

Dashboard > Finance > GL & Close > General Ledger
Dashboard > Finance > Reports > General Ledger

Both paths open the same General Ledger report. This page is the canonical documentation for that shared report.

Report controls

The report opens with:

Start Date, defaulted to one month before the current date.
End Date, defaulted to the current date.
Account, defaulted to All Accounts.
Generate Report.

Select a specific account to run the report for one account, or leave All Accounts selected to include all accounts with opening balances or activity in the selected period.

Start Date and End Date are required.

Report output

After Generate Report is selected, PAX groups the report by account.

Each account section shows:

Account number.
Account description.
Account type.
Opening balance.
Journal entry activity.
Ending balance.

The activity table includes:

Column	What it shows
`Date`	Journal entry posted date.
`Reference`	Journal entry reference.
`JE #`	Journal entry ID.
`Debit`	Debit amount for the line, or `-`.
`Credit`	Credit amount for the line, or `-`.
`Balance`	Running account balance after the line.
`Project`	Project ID on the line, or `-`.
`Created By`	User who created the entry.

For Asset and Expense accounts, debits increase the running balance and credits decrease it. For Liability, Equity, and Revenue accounts, credits increase the running balance and debits decrease it.

If the ending fiscal period is still open, PAX shows that ending balances are preliminary. Treat preliminary balances as subject to change until the period is closed.

Copy for Excel

After the report is generated, select Copy for Excel to copy tab-separated report data to the clipboard.

The copied data includes account, description, type, date, reference, JE number, debit, credit, running balance, project, and created-by user.

Copying for Excel does not change records.

What happens behind the scenes

Opening General Ledger does not change records.

When the report is generated, PAX:

Finds the fiscal period that contains the start date.
Reads opening balances for that period.
Adds any activity between the fiscal period start and the report start date to calculate the report opening balance.
Reads journal entry lines between the selected start and end dates.
Groups activity by account.
Calculates running balances using the account type.
Checks whether the ending period is open or closed.

The report includes accounts with opening balances even when they have no activity in the selected date range.

Troubleshooting

The report will not run

Likely cause: Start date or end date is missing.

Safe fix: Enter both dates and select Generate Report.

Contact support if: Dates are entered but the report still fails.

No transactions appear

Likely cause: No journal entry lines match the selected date range and account.

Safe fix: Confirm the date range, account selection, and posted dates on the expected entries.

Contact support if: Entries are visible in Journal Entries but missing from the General Ledger for the same dates and accounts.

Ending balances are preliminary

Likely cause: The report end date belongs to an open fiscal period.

Safe fix: Use the report for review, but wait for period close before treating the balance as final.

Contact support if: A closed period still appears preliminary.