Retained earnings on final filing

[kim125]

I am filing the final return for my single owner S corp.  No matter what amount I put in the shareholder distributions, it will not adjust the retained earnings down to the required amount of 0.  If there is a limit on how much distribution it will let me take, how do I zero out the retained earnings?   Thanks

[Mike9241]

we can't see the return which makes it diffcult to diagnose the issue. but if RE is not zero there must be another account that offsets it otherwise the balance sheet would be out of balance.  if the balance sheet is oout of balance, but was in balance at the start of the year, you entered something incorrectly and that could be anything 

is the m-2 showing as ending balances  all columns as zero?  is M-2 beginning balance all columns in agreement with retained earnings?   

[kim125]

The M-2 all comes out to 0, but I do have a value in the 'distributions in excess of retained earnings' field.  I dont understand why those dont lower the retained earnings rather than being listed there.