Trial Balance

A record prepared at any moment in time to prove the accuracy of the ledger. If the totals of the debit and credit balances in the individual ledger accounts agree, the ledger is said to be in balance.

In preparing trial balance, all the accounts from the ledger post to or consist of a listing of accounts balances in two columns labeled debit and credit. Make sure the debit account equal to credit account.

There are four steps to prepare a trial balance:

1. Determine the balance of each account in the ledger
2. List the accounts and their balances with the debit balances in one column and the credit balance in another.
3. Total the debit balances and then total the credit balances.
4. Compare the sums of the debit and credit balances to see if they are equal.