Open Items and Trial Balance Lists –
simply explained

Have you recently been asked about the open items and trial balance lists of your company? We explain what these somewhat cryptic abbreviations mean.

Key facts at a glance:

• The German abbreviations "OPos" and "SuSa" stand for "Offene-Posten-Liste" (open items list) and "Summen-und-Salden-Liste" (trial balance).

• The trial balance contains asset accounts, which include items such as purchased goods, machinery and receivables of the business.

• In the monthly open items list, every outstanding liability and every unpaid receivable from a customer is listed separately.

What Are Open Items and Trial Balance Lists?

The German abbreviations "OPos" and "SuSa" stand for "Offene-Posten-Liste" (open items list) and "Summen-und-Saldenliste" (trial balance). Both are usually monthly supplements to the BWA, the business management assessment of a company.

The trial balance is a listing of all accounts according to the structure of the chart of accounts used, showing their respective account movements over a period and their opening and closing balances.

The open items list contains the outstanding receivables and liabilities from deliveries and services at a specific point in time. In other words: the outstanding payments from customers, but also the amounts that the company itself owes to its suppliers and service providers.

What Does the Trial Balance Contain?

This list is structured similarly to a company's balance sheet. It contains asset accounts, which include items such as purchased goods, machinery and receivables of the business. On the other side are liability accounts, containing items such as debt capital or provisions.

In addition, there are so-called income and expense accounts. These include, for example, revenue accounts or accounts for incurred expenses. There are also accounts for debtors — the company's receivables — and for its creditors, the payables — such as suppliers. From these last two accounts, it is possible to see how high the currently outstanding receivables and liabilities are.

However, no detailed individual listing of invoices takes place here — that is what the open items list is for. The trial balance records the respective account movements in debit and credit over one month.

For example: what revenue was generated this month? In addition, the values for the summarised account movements in the previous months of the financial year are shown, along with the opening balance and the closing balance.

What Does the Open Items List Contain?

In the monthly open items list, every outstanding liability and every unpaid receivable from a customer is listed separately. These open items are described with comprehensive information:

• Invoice number, date

• Master data of the respective debtor or creditor

• Payment terms, length of any overdue periods

• Outstanding/unpaid amounts for the respective customer/supplier

• Total outstanding amounts of liabilities and receivables

What Are Open Items and Trial Balance Lists Used For?

The open items list provides an overview of the expected cash inflows and outflows from operating business. From this, the liquidity situation of the company can be assessed. The open items list is also useful for payment processing and dunning, as it shows when an item becomes overdue.

With the trial balance, a look at the economic development of the company can be taken within the year. For experienced analysts, it provides an overview of the development of the asset and earnings position as well as the origin and use of funds. Tax advisors can also derive forecasts of expected tax payments from it.

Lenders Also Look at Open Items and Trial Balances

The lists are not only useful for internal business analysis. Investors or banks may also request access to these data collections before planned engagements. The trial balance serves, for example, to verify the figures from the BWA. In addition, insights for the creditworthiness assessment of the company can be gained from both lists.