Capture COS/WIP Activity Process Results in Journal Out of Balance

[brivers (Bryan Rivers)]

When running the Capture COS/WIP Activity Process in Epicor for the month of February, a single transaction popped into Review Journal with an error message of “Transaction does not balance.” All of the accounts in the transaction listing are fine, it’s just that another account for the $500 out of balance must be missing. Review Journal will not let me delete the problem line, nor will it let me change the amount of any of the lines. I carried the OOB in the general ledger for February, but now we move on to March. The Capture COS/WIP Process not only is picking up the issue from February, but now there are a couple of other entries as well. Those entries were simple fixes because the account number just needed changing. However, neither of those corrected entries will post because they are in the same Review Journal batch as the February issue. Thanks in advance for any help anyone might have!

[tsmith (Tyler Smith)]

It’s been a while since we had an out-of-balance posting, but generally these are the steps we follow at my company to find and fix these:

1. In Review Journal, go to Actions > Journal Cancellation. This will kick all the stuck transactions back to unposted status so you can fix them.
2. Turn on the Posting Engine (PE) Log for the COS/WIP Transaction type. BE CAREFUL! You ONLY want to do this while you’re troubleshooting. This log can get MASSIVE and you do NOT want to leave it on accidentally.
3. Run the Inventory/WIP Reconciliation report for the date your OOB transaction was on. This should be the same date as the postings were in Review Journal. Run for one date at a time to make the PE Log more manageable.
4. Review the Inv/WIP report. See if you can spot which transaction is out of balance. If you can, and you know the missing GL control, go fix it and re-run the report to see if it’s in balance again.
5. If not, go to your PE Log viewer and dig down until you see a line stating a GL Control could not be found…this will be tedious, but the missing control will be there. The log should give you a good idea of which control + context is missing.
6. Once you have the controls fixed, re-run Inv/WIP Recon and make sure it all balances.
7. Once it does balance, TURN OFF the PE Log.
8. Run the Capture.

[dcamlin (David Camlin)]

I’m going to plop this here in case it is useful… but I also see @tsmith typing He knows his stuff!!! So… Imma back off and let him help you!

Finance Question - Guidance Needed

We have a finance related issue that I’m not sure how to fix because that side of Epicor is a relative mystery to me. Our finance group tried to Capture December’s numbers and it wouldn’t post because the journal entry was out of balance. I was able to identify the issue… We had a PO line item that somehow got tagged as Inspection Required. We don’t use Epicor’s inspection stuff so when our finance group saw the PUR-INS transaction, they had no idea what it was. I cleared the item through th…

[tsmith (Tyler Smith)]

The post @dcamlin linked to has some more information about the PE Log and viewer and also points out that the Transaction Hierarchy reference guides are pretty good at tracking down which GL controls you need per transaction type code. If you know the type of transaction that’s OOB, then you can use the guide instead of having to comb through the log.

[brivers (Bryan Rivers)]

Thank you so much for such a quick reply. I am just the accounting guy, but was able to follow your instructional chain. I believe the issue is definitely an orphaned GL line associated with a GL Control within a Posting Reference Rule (or whatever the technical name for the programmed rule is). Your response has given me at least a starting point to talk with IT about what programming changes need be done. Thanks!