Rebuilding a draft after the trial balance changes
What happens to the figures and to your edited wording when a late trial balance change forces the draft statements to be rebuilt in Achekam.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
The draft is nearly done. The notes are written, the directors' report has been through two rounds, the partner has read the set once. Then the client's bookkeeper sends a new trial balance: a supplier invoice was missing, the bank was reconciled again, the VAT was corrected. Everything downstream of the trial balance is now in question.
Late changes are part of every year end, and the anxiety they cause is mostly about what the team will lose. This article explains what Achekam rebuilds, what it keeps, which figures need a manual look and how to review what moved.
Why late changes are normal
The trial balance is rarely final when the statements start. Clients keep posting, reconciliations get finished, the firm's own review finds things. A late change is not a sign that something went wrong; a process that cannot absorb one would be.
What a firm can control is how changes arrive. Agree with the client that corrections come as a complete new trial balance rather than a list of journals in an e-mail, and that each version carries a date. Keep every version the client sends, so a reviewer can see what changed between them. And ask the bookkeeper to stop posting to the year once the firm says the trial balance is final, so the next version is the last one rather than one of many.
A trial balance is the listing of ledger balances used to check that total debits equal total credits, as Investopedia's explainer on the trial balance describes it. That check is the first one to repeat on any new version, before it goes anywhere near the statements.
Loading the corrected trial balance
Load the new version the same way as the first. Staff can upload a trial balance as an Excel workbook, a CSV file or a PDF that has a text layer, and Achekam reads it into a trial balance. Before mapping, compare it with the previous version: which accounts changed, by how much, and whether any new ones appeared.
New accounts need mapping. Achekam suggests a line for each from the file's own mapping column, earlier mappings, AI or keyword rules, and a suggestion only becomes an approved mapping once a person approves it. When the Studio builds the draft, AI suggestions with a confidence of 0.5 or more go in straight away and are listed as proposals; a new account placed that way deserves the same attention as any other proposal.
Formats and file checks are covered in uploading a trial balance.
Figures rebuilt in code, edited blocks kept
From a mapped trial balance, the Studio builds a draft set with every figure calculated in code: the directors' report, the primary statements, policies, notes and the detailed income statement. A rebuild recalculates all of them, so no figure is left over from the previous version.
What a rebuild keeps is the team's structural and written work:
- Edited text. A block a person edited is kept when the draft is rebuilt.
- Custom lines and wording. The firm's own statement lines and groups, and any reworded row titles, are kept by later builds.
That protects the work, but it also creates the main review risk. An edited paragraph that says "revenue increased" or "the company returned to profit" survives the rebuild even if the new figures say otherwise. Kept text is not checked text.
Typed cash flow figures and comparatives after a rebuild
Some figures are not simply recalculated, and each needs a deliberate look.
Typed cash flow figures. The cash flow statement's current-year column is worked out from the change in balances, but staff can type their own figure for any line, and a typed figure takes priority. After a trial balance change, the calculated figure underneath may have moved while the typed one has not. Review every typed line, then either update it or remove it so the calculation applies again.
Comparatives. These come from a person's figures, last year's issued statements or a prior-year set a person reviews, so a change to this year's trial balance does not touch them. If the late change is really a correction of last year, it is a prior period matter, not a rebuild.
Adjusting entries. Staff can post year-end adjusting entries in the Studio, and a wrong one is reversed with who and why, never deleted. Watch for double counting: if the client has now posted your adjustment in its own ledger, the new trial balance already contains it, and the Studio's entry has to be reversed.
Re-reviewing what moved
A rebuild calls for a short, targeted review rather than a full one. A routine:
- Compare the old and new trial balances and list every changed account.
- For each, find the statement lines and notes it feeds, and check them.
- Read every edited paragraph that refers to results, trends or particular amounts.
- Check typed cash flow lines and the list of adjusting entries for anything the change made stale.
- Work any new AI mapping proposals.
- If the client has already approved the draft, decide whether the change needs fresh approval.
The last step matters more than it looks, because the client approved a frozen copy that no longer matches the draft. Changes after the client approved the draft covers when to go back.
Handled this way, a late trial balance costs the team a focused round of checking rather than a rewrite, and the set that reaches the partner reflects the books as they finally stand.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
