The General Ledger Transaction report does not agree with other financial statements when it comes to the Retained earnings account.
The illustrations below are for a very small, sole trader business that ceased operation in 2023. The Retained earnings account had been renamed Owner’s equity. At the time of business termination, all funds had been withdrawn from company accounts, and all Balance Sheet balances were zero:
Similarly, the Statement of Changes in Equity report shows an opening equity balance for 2023 of 111.36, reduced to zero by year’s end:
And the General Ledger Summary shows the same thing:
However, the General Ledger Transactions report shows dramatically different figures, as the excerpt below demonstrates. The opening balance for Owner’s equity (Retained earnings) is incorrect, and every running balance figure is wrong:
All other accounts in the General Ledger Transactions report are correct. They show correct opening balances (where they exist) and correct running balances after every transaction. Drilling down on the Owner’s equity (Retained earnings) balance from the Balance Sheet report produces running balances consistent with the other reports.
I cannot tell when this discrepancy was introduced, as I only possess printed reports back to 2021, when it was already present, for comparison. As you would expect, all General Ledger Transactions reports currently saved, going back 10 years, demonstrate this same discrepancy when viewed. But that sheds no light on when the problem might have first appeared.
Not knowing how the report is coded, I can only speculate about the source of the problem. But the report is getting the opening balance wrong. Rather than using the account balance at the beginning of the report period, it seems to be using the sum of all debits since inception, but ignoring prior credits.