If your prepayment balance sheet in ScaleXP doesn’t agree with the balance in Xero or QuickBooks, the difference almost always traces back to one of three things. 

Reason 1. Proposed journals that have not yet been posted and synced

Check that your proposed journals have been posted and that you have synced your accounting system with ScaleXP.  Ensure that your sync dates cover the period you are reviewing.  If you data is not updating as expected, see Why is my accounting data not updating when I sync? (how to increase sync history) 

Reason 2 -Starting balance sheets don't match

ScaleXP builds your prepayment schedule from the bills you select and recognizes them forward — so if the balance you started from doesn’t match Xero or QBO on day one, every period after will be off by the same amount.

You have two ways to resolve a starting-balance mismatch.

Option A. Set up a dedicated ScaleXP prepayment account (recommended)

 The dedicated-account approach is the smoother option for most customers, and is the one recommended in Prepaid Expenses: Best Practices and Quick Start Guide.  

• Rather than reconciling historic and new prepayments in the same account, you can create a brand-new balance sheet account — for example, “Prepaid Expenses ScaleXP” — and use it only for prepayments handled by ScaleXP from your switchover date onward. 
• Your old prepayment account continues to run down naturally through your existing process, and the new account starts from a clean zero balance that ScaleXP fully controls.
• To set this up:
  • Create the new prepayment balance sheet account in Xero or QuickBooks.
  • In ScaleXP’s Expense Journal Settings, set your default Prepayments account to the new ScaleXP account. Make sure no other balance sheet accounts are selected — selecting only the new account is critical for the journal to be correct.
  • After your switchover date, code all new prepaid bills to the new account in Xero or QuickBooks (or, if you currently code prepaid bills to a P&L expense account, mark all pre-switchover bills as “Excluded” in ScaleXP so only post-switchover bills flow into the journal). For more on inclusion status, see How to change the review status of a supplier or bill on Prepaid Expenses pages.
  • Continue to track any bills pre-dating the switchover via your existing spreadsheets and manual journals. Month by month, your older prepayment account will reduce to zero on its own.
• If the default-account field is locked in your settings, Customer Success can unlock and update it for you via Live Chat or at support@scalexp.com.

Option B. Align all transactions across ScaleXP and your accounting system

If you’d rather keep using your existing prepayment account, ensure that all bills and expenses sitting in the prepayment account when you start using ScaleXP are selected in ScaleXP and that none are missing from ScaleXP.  

• If any are missing, see How to Add a Missing Bill or Cost Supplier. 
• If the difference is the result of slight timing differences, you may want to align ScaleXP dates or create a manual adjustment.  

Reason 3 - Transactions don't match

This is related to Reason 2, Option B.

Bills dated before the journal start date

ScaleXP only includes bills dated on or after your journal start date in the automated prepayment journal. Any prepayment activity from earlier periods continues to sit in your accounting system, but it is not reflected in ScaleXP’s monthly journal — so the two will drift apart unless that historic activity is either captured in your starting-balance adjustment (Option B in Reason 2) or kept in a separate legacy account (Option A in Reason 2).

Bills not selected in the prepayment review

Anything excluded in the “Select Prepayments” process or coced to a prepayments account without a matching expense account won’t appear in the proposed journal.   To investigate, download the line-item detail from the Post Prepayment Journal page and compare it against the activity in the prepayment account in your accounting system. Any rows showing up in Xero or QBO but missing from ScaleXP are candidates for review. You can change inclusion status from the Select Prepayments — and if a bill is missing entirely from ScaleXP, follow How to add a missing bill or cost supplier.