[Bug]: Trial Balance (Excel): Add Option to Hide Zero-Activity Accounts

[miljance]

Describe the issue

Follow-up to #7143. This report describes a missing but commonly expected filtering capability in the Trial Balance (Excel) report.

Describe the feature

The Trial Balance (Excel) report currently has no option to exclude G/L Accounts that show no activity for the selected period — meaning accounts where all of the following are true:

• Opening Balance Debit = 0
• Opening Balance Credit = 0
• Debit Turnover = 0
• Credit Turnover = 0
• Closing Balance Debit = 0
• Closing Balance Credit = 0

In a chart of accounts with hundreds of accounts, the absence of this filter produces reports that are difficult to review, because the majority of rows may be completely empty. This is a standard capability in professional accounting systems and is consistent with established IFRS-aligned accounting practice.

IFRS / Regulatory context

While IFRS does not prescribe the layout of a trial balance or mandate specific filtering rules, IFRS-aligned accounting practice and widely adopted international accounting systems support the exclusion of zero-activity accounts on the following basis:

• A trial balance is defined as a report listing general ledger account balances — including debit and credit totals — used to verify mathematical accuracy of bookkeeping before preparing IFRS-compliant statements. Since its purpose is to summarize actual balances and turnovers, accounts with no movement contribute nothing to this verification.
• IFRS-oriented documentation describes the trial balance as a report that compares actual debit and credit balances, where debit and credit sides must always agree. An account with no debit or credit balance and no turnover has no effect on this comparison and does not contribute to any IFRS-related validation step.
• Because the trial balance is an internal control step preceding IFRS financial statements, its value lies in confirming correct debit/credit totals, correct balances rolling into the statement of financial position and profit or loss, and readiness for adjustments and closing entries. Zero-activity accounts provide none of these and are routinely suppressed in professional IFRS-aligned workflows.

Conclusion: While IFRS does not mandate hiding zero-activity accounts, providing an option to do so is fully consistent with established IFRS-aligned accounting practice and the purpose of the trial balance as an internal control and reporting tool.

Expected behavior

A filter option — such as a boolean toggle "Show Accounts with No Activity" (defaulting to false) — should be available on the Trial Balance (Excel) report request page. When disabled:

• Only accounts with at least one non-zero value across Opening Balance, Debit Turnover, Credit Turnover, or Closing Balance are included in the output.
• Accounts where all columns are zero or blank for the selected period are suppressed.

Steps to reproduce

1. Open Business Central and navigate to Reports → Finance → Trial Balance (Excel).
2. Set a Date Filter for any closed period.
3. Do not filter by account — allow all accounts to be included.
4. Run the report and open the generated Excel file.
5. Observe that the output includes all G/L Accounts regardless of whether they have any opening balance, turnover, or closing balance for the selected period.

Actual: All accounts are listed, including those with no activity whatsoever for the period.
Expected: Only accounts with at least one non-zero value in any column are listed by default, with an option to include zero-activity accounts if explicitly requested.

Additional context

No response

I will provide a fix for a bug

• I will provide a fix for a bug

[miljance]

@mynjj