Forum Discussion
Unique problem...can I use Excel to solve it?
You'd think so, in theory. However, for many of them the accounts were set up and mapped years ago by previous office staff. If I ask for that information, some of them know how to provide it but many don't.
- Problem with this is that there may be more than one solution to a combination of numbers and you'd have no way of knowing which is the correct answer.
While it's possible that more than one sub account may have the same #, it's generally pretty unlikely. We are usually talking about fairly sizeable #s as well, especially on the balance sheet that the trial balance sub-accounts are feeding to. So say I have an account on the balance sheet showing an asset valued at $29,654...it's not often that you'd be able to use multiple combinations to get to exactly that figure. The only time that issue might arise is when you have sub-accounts with really small figures...say $5. It may seem like it could fit into multiple accounts. However, figures that small are also pretty inconsequential to the analysis.
