What Does Crossfoot Mean?

A crossfoot is a summarization of the column totals in a ledger. The term comes from the concept of footing, which refers to the summarization of one column of numbers. Crossfooting involves adding together the totals of a series of columns to make sure that they add up to the grand total stated in a report or ledger.

When a crossfooting analysis finds that the total of a set of columns does not match the stated grand total, then there is an error in the column totals or the grand total that must be corrected. This is an essential tool of the auditor, to ensure that reports summarize correctly. The concept is also used when manually verifying that a newly-designed report operates as expected. Crossfooting verifies that the automated totaling functions in a report are working as expected.