Trial Balance

From Open Risk Manual

Definition

A Trial Balance is a preliminary list of all the General Ledger accounts contained in the Ledger of a business. The list contains the name of each ledger account and the value of that ledger Balance. It is a part of the double-entry bookkeeping system

The objective is to prove that debit value balances equal credit value balances. If the total of the debit column does not equal the total value of the credit column then this would show that there is one of possible Accounting Errors in the ledger accounts (which may lead to adjustments). A trial balance is prepared by an Accountant who has used daybooks or journals to record financial transactions.