The Balance (Saldo) accounting output does not group documents by variable symbol, but by pairing symbol. The pairing symbol is calculated automatically and in some situations differs from the variable symbol. The following text explains how the pairing symbol is created, why a document can remain in the unsettled balance even after it has been paid, and how to fix the situation.

The pairing symbol is the key by which the balance groups accounting entries on a balance-tracked account. If the sum of a group is zero, the group is considered settled and drops out of the unsettled balance.

The pairing symbol is not a separate field on a document. You cannot fill it in or overwrite it, because it is calculated only when the balance is generated, based on the variable symbols of the document and its payment.

When pairing, the payment takes over the variable symbol of the document being settled. The document and the payment therefore fall into the same group, their sum is zero, and they do not appear in the unsettled balance.

If one payment settles several documents with different variable symbols, a single pairing symbol must be chosen for the entire resulting group. It is taken from the payment, that is, from one of the documents being settled. As a result, the other documents end up under a pairing symbol that does not match their own variable symbol.

Example

Both invoices and the payment receive the pairing symbol 2026002. As long as only the relationship between the invoices and their payment is involved, the balance is settled and the documents drop out of the unsettled balance.

The problem arises when one of the documents has its counterpart elsewhere, typically a deduction on a final invoice or an internal document. This counterpart carries its own variable symbol, so it does not end up in the same group, the group is not settled, and the documents remain in the unsettled balance even though the accounting status is correct.

If their pairing symbols differ, you are dealing with the situation described above. Also check the total balance of the balance-tracked account in the trial balance. It is usually zero, because what is broken is not the accounting status, but only the key by which the entries are grouped.

Split the lump-sum payment into as many transactions as the number of documents it settles, and pair them with the documents individually. Each partial transaction takes over the variable symbol of the document it belongs to, so each document receives its own pairing symbol and drops out of the unsettled balance. The original payment details, including the variable symbol, are retained in the partial transactions, so the link to the bank statement is not lost.

Going forward, follow a simple rule: one payment corresponds to one document.

For documents that are already paired, you must first unpair the payment, and only then can you perform the pairing again. For a larger volume of documents, the free add-on Bulk unpairing of bank and cash register can help.

Do not overwrite the variable symbol on a bank transaction just to make the balance look right. A bank transaction is an imprint of the actual payment, and changing it will make it diverge from the bank statement. For how to proceed when changing the variable symbol on a document that is already paired, see the article Changing the variable symbol on a paired document.

Most often because its pairing symbol does not match the pairing symbol of its counterpart. This typically happens when one payment has settled several documents with different variable symbols.

No. It is not an editable field; it is calculated only when the balance is generated. You can influence it only through the variable symbols on documents and the way the payment is paired.

From the application's perspective, a mutual offset is a fictitious bank statement and behaves in the same way as a bank. The pairing symbol is derived using the same logic from the linked documents. The offset number does not enter the balance; it serves to link the entries of a single offset in the Mutual offset agreement print report. The connecting account through which the offset is posted must be set as balance-tracked, otherwise you will not see the full picture in the balance. The procedure is described in the article Creating a mutual offset manually.

For the balance, yes. Both documents are source documents and carry their own variable symbol into the pairing symbol, so they fall into one group with a sum of zero and drop out of the unsettled balance. However, in reports that work with the document's payment status, they will remain as unpaid. The clean solution is a mutual offset, which settles both.

Use a mutual offset, with the invoice on one side and the amount merely posted on the other. The procedure is described in the article Excluding unpaid invoices from the balance.

Paid manually does not address the cause, but it causes the balance to diverge from the trial balance. How it behaves in individual outputs is described in the section Balance and other overviews of unpaid documents.

Only in exceptional cases. The flag is intended mainly for transfer and opening documents. It does not change the account balance, so after you use it, the balance diverges from the trial balance. If you use it in a rare case, the document must truly be paid, and the Exclude from balance flag must also be set on all linked documents, for example payments or exchange rate differences. For details, see the section The Exclude from balance flag.