P&L and Balance Sheet Contain Different Months

Full message text

The Income Statement does not contain the same months as the Balance Sheet.

Resolutions Steps

Possibility #1 - Date ranges actually do not match

This is the most common problem, and it's easily resolved. Just explain or remind the user that the upload batch has to be a matched pair and the date ranges / month columns have to match precisely.

Sometimes this problem will occur when (for instance) they have an accounting system that we support automatically (such as QuickBooks Online) but they didn't follow our instructions for how to export from that system. In that case, ask the user what they're using, and then point them to the relevant video in the How To Export From Your Accounting System section of our knowledge base (hint, just click on Solutions at the top and you'll find it).

Possibility #2 - CFOS is unable to parse certain column(s)

Occasionally CFOS will have trouble picking up a certain month or column, or range of columns. This will create what appears to be a mismatch in the date ranges which is what might trigger this error. Some common causes of this:

• The pattern for the column headers (which contain the month and year) suddenly changes in the middle of the document, or one column happens to have an extra character, or missing a space, or whatever. Any of these would prevent CFOS from correctly parsing the column.
• The value(s) in a given column are weird, have special characters, or unusual cell formatting as compared to the rest of the document.
• A column header itself has an odd cell format, as compared to the rest of the document.
• A date (month and year) occurs somewhere else in the document, and thereby confuses the parser. Dates can sometimes show up in the document header (as opposed to column header) and these extras will sometimes need to be removed.

(Rare) Possibility #3 - Duplicate dates in the document

Occasionally, there will be other instances of dates within the spreadsheet(s), outside of the "normal" row of dates. It could be in the header, footer, or even in the account names somewhere. This will confuse the parser sometimes, and indicate an end-of-date-range to the algorithm before it actually should ... or whatever. In those cases, try deleting the offending cell(s) and then reuploading in your own test company, to see what happens.