To trace a Profit & Loss figure back to the vouchers behind it in Smart Books, open Registers > Revenue & Expense. The Revenue Register and Expense Register list every voucher line posted to an income or expense ledger, and show whether the total matches the Profit & Loss. This guide shows how a profit and loss register helps during month-end review.
Why the Sales Register alone may not match your revenue
A Sales Register lists Sales vouchers. That is useful, but the Profit & Loss counts income from wherever it was posted. Interest booked through a journal, commission credited straight from a receipt, or a credit note against a sale all change revenue without being a Sales voucher.
So when the Sales Register total and the revenue on your Profit & Loss differ, the gap usually sits in those other vouchers. Until now you had to hunt for them ledger by ledger. The Revenue Register and Expense Register were added to Aicountly Smart Books to close that gap.
What the two registers show
Each register lists every voucher line on a Profit & Loss ledger, whatever voucher posted it. The Revenue Register covers income ledgers; the Expense Register covers expense ledgers. You will find them under Registers > Revenue & Expense, and the Profit & Loss report also links to both.
- Revenue Register: sales, journals, receipts and notes posted to income ledgers, adding up to the Profit & Loss revenue.
- Expense Register: purchases, payments, journals and notes posted to expense ledgers, adding up to the Profit & Loss expenses.
Lines of cancelled and optional vouchers are not included, in line with the Profit & Loss. On the Expense Register, Opening and Closing Stock come from Inventory and are not voucher lines, so they are not listed.
Read the tie-out banner first
At the top of the page a banner tells you whether the register ties to the Profit & Loss. If it does, you see the total, for example "Ties to the Profit & Loss" followed by the amount. If it does not, the banner shows the difference instead, in amber, so you know something needs a look before you rely on the figures.
Beside it, Aicountly Smart Books splits the total between Sales (or Purchase) vouchers and other vouchers such as journals, receipts, payments and notes. That one line often answers the question "why is the Sales Register lower than revenue?" straight away.
Three ways to look at the same figures
A switch on the page lets you change the view without losing your filters:
- Ledger-wise: one row per P&L ledger with its debit, credit and net. Start here to see which ledger moved.
- Voucher type-wise: one row per voucher type, with the number of lines and each type's share of the total. Useful to spot, say, a large journal component.
- Line-wise: every voucher line. Open a row to go to the voucher itself.
The summary cards above the table (the total, direct, indirect, sales or purchase vouchers, and other vouchers) are clickable. Clicking one narrows the register to that slice.
Filter down to the question you have
You can set the period and then filter by Nature (direct or indirect), by Ledger and by Voucher type. A practical month-end routine:
- Pick the month and open the Revenue Register ledger-wise.
- Check the banner ties to the Profit & Loss.
- Open the voucher type-wise view and look at the journals and receipts feeding income.
- Drill into the line-wise view for any ledger that looks unusual and open the voucher.
- Repeat for the Expense Register.
This works alongside the other checks in a half-year book closing checklist, and it helps if you also need to understand why the Balance Sheet's Profit & Loss figure differs from your P&L report.
Export for your CA or auditor
Each register can be exported to Excel, to PDF or printed. The Excel export is a workbook with four sheets: Summary, Ledger-wise, Voucher type-wise and Line-wise. The Summary sheet carries the tie-out note, so whoever reviews the file can see the register and the Profit & Loss figure side by side.
Sales and purchase registers remain the right place for GST-oriented checks; for instance, see how a GST rate-wise summary keeps sales and purchases apart. The Revenue and Expense Registers answer a different question: does everything in the statement trace back to a voucher?
Key takeaways
- A Sales Register covers Sales vouchers only; the Profit & Loss counts income from every voucher type.
- The Revenue and Expense Registers list every voucher line on an income or expense ledger.
- The banner on top shows whether the register ties to the Profit & Loss, or by how much it differs.
- Use ledger-wise, voucher type-wise and line-wise views, then open the voucher.
- Export to Excel (four sheets), PDF or print for your reviewer.
If you do your month-end review in Aicountly Smart Books, the Revenue and Expense Registers give you a way to trace Profit & Loss totals to vouchers. As always, confirm your accounting treatment with your chartered accountant.
