Repairing Account Balances

AccuArk maintains running balances for each account in the chart of accounts. These stored balances (total_debits, total_credits, and balance) are updated whenever a transaction is created, edited, or deleted. In rare cases, the stored balance can become out of sync with the actual transaction history. The Repair Account Balances feature recalculates these stored values from scratch, ensuring accuracy.

Permission Required

Repairing account balances requires the FIN_REPAIR_BALANCES permission. Users without this permission will not see the repair option.

When to Use Repair Balances

You should consider repairing balances when:

• The Trial Balance does not balance — If total debits do not equal total credits across all accounts, one or more stored balances may be incorrect
• An account balance looks wrong — If you review an account's transactions and the sum does not match the displayed balance
• After a database recovery — If you restored from a backup that may not have captured the latest balance updates
• After manual database edits — If someone modified the chart_master table directly (outside of AccuArk), stored balances may not reflect reality
• Unexplained discrepancies — If you have ruled out other causes and suspect a data integrity issue

In normal operation, you should not need to repair balances frequently. AccuArk updates balances atomically within database transactions, so discrepancies are rare.

How to Access Repair Balances

The repair feature is accessed from the Chart of Accounts form:

1. Open Business > Chart of Accounts from the main menu
2. Right-click anywhere in the accounts grid to open the context menu
3. Select Repair Account Balances

Repair Options

When you select Repair Account Balances, you are presented with two options:

Repair Single Account

Repairs only the currently selected account:

1. Select the account you want to repair in the grid
2. Right-click and choose Repair Account Balances
3. Choose Repair Selected Account
4. The system recalculates the balance for that one account

This is useful when you have identified a specific account with a discrepancy and do not need to repair the entire chart of accounts.

Repair All Accounts

Repairs every account in the chart of accounts:

1. Right-click in the grid and choose Repair Account Balances
2. Choose Repair All Accounts
3. The system recalculates balances for every account

This is useful after a database recovery or when you are unsure which accounts may be affected.

What the Repair Does

For each account being repaired, the system performs the following steps:

1. Queries all transactions — Reads every transaction record associated with the account from the account_transactions table
2. Sums total debits — Adds up all debit amounts from the transaction history
3. Sums total credits — Adds up all credit amounts from the transaction history
4. Calculates the balance — Computes the correct balance based on the account's normal balance direction (debit-normal accounts: debits minus credits; credit-normal accounts: credits minus debits)
5. Updates the stored values — Writes the recalculated total_debits, total_credits, and balance back to the chart_master table

The repair runs within a database transaction to ensure consistency. If any part of the repair fails, all changes are rolled back.

After the Repair

Once the repair completes:

• The grid refreshes to show the updated balances
• A confirmation message indicates how many accounts were repaired
• If any balances changed, the previous and new values are noted

You can verify the repair by running the Trial Balance report (Business > Trial Balance) to confirm that total debits equal total credits.

Tips

• Repair is non-destructive — It does not create, delete, or modify any transactions. It only recalculates the stored balance summaries.
• Run during low activity — If you are repairing all accounts on a large chart of accounts, consider running the repair during off-hours to avoid contention with other users
• Check the Trial Balance after repair — Always verify the results by reviewing the Trial Balance report
• Investigate the root cause — If you find yourself needing to repair balances frequently, investigate why the discrepancies are occurring. This may indicate a deeper issue that needs attention.