How to Import a Trial Balance into UltraTax CS

The design, and who it suits

UltraTax does not really have a trial balance import in the sense of pointing at a spreadsheet and mapping columns. It has tax codes. A number on each general ledger account says which input screen and field the balance belongs to, and the transfer from the accounting application does the rest.

For a firm that keeps the client's books in Accounting CS or Trial Balance CS, this is the best of the three systems: assign the codes once and the return populates every year with no retyping.

For everyone else, it does nothing at all. A trial balance that arrives as a client spreadsheet has no tax codes, and nothing transfers. The options then are to key it in, or to set the client up in a CS accounting application purely to get the codes assigned, which is a large amount of work to avoid a smaller one.

Where the codes come from

The Tax Code Diagrams guide, published per return type, lists the code numbers and what they map to. It is the authority rather than guessing from the account name, because several codes land in the same place through different routes.

The two cases worth memorizing:

• Inventory: code 280 sends ending inventory to Screen A first and then to Schedule L. Code 403 sends it to Schedule L only. Which one is right depends on whether the cost of goods sold detail is coming from the same ledger
• Retained earnings: for Schedule M-2 to agree with Schedule L, the retained earnings fields in Screen L-2 should stay blank and codes 467, 468, 469 and 470 should not be assigned to them. Assign them and the two schedules disagree in a way that looks like a balance sheet error

What still has to be done by hand

Depreciation. The asset module computes it and produces Form 4562, so a tax coded book depreciation figure flowing into a deduction field deducts the expense twice.

Beginning balances on a new client. Nothing in a first year file knows what last year's ending balances were.

Equity detail. Partner capital goes on Screen M1M2 in the Balance Sheet folder, with the method set in Screen K1Misc, rather than arriving with the rest of the balances.

Check the Return Summary

If the balance sheet is out, UltraTax generates a diagnostic and the Return Summary shows the difference. For new clients the default rounding tolerance is $10, so very small differences are absorbed rather than reported.