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March 23, 2007

What is the procedure for preparing a trial balance?

To prepare a trial balance, you or the accounting software will simply list the titles of all of the accounts in the general ledger that have balances. To the right of the account titles you will have two columns for entering each account’s balance. One column is headed “Debit” and the other column is headed “Credit.” You then list each account’s balance in the appropriate column. After all of the account balances are entered, each column is summed. The total of the debit column should be equal to the total of the credit column.

Prior to accounting software, there were many opportunities for errors. For example, an amount might be written incorrectly when posted from a journal to the account, a math error might occur when calculating an account’s balance, an amount might be written incorrectly in one of the columns on the trial balance, and so on. The trial balance alerted you that an amount or amounts were wrong. If the trial balance did not balance, it meant rechecking all of the amounts.

Today, the accounting software has eliminated the math and clerical errors. As a result, the trial balance does not play the critical role that it did many years ago.

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Comments

31 Responses to “What is the procedure for preparing a trial balance?”

  1. reemz on June 4th, 2008 9:16 am

    this website is great

  2. ahmad on July 23rd, 2008 1:34 am

    What is a consolidated balance sheet? With one example

  3. Arnold on September 5th, 2008 1:51 pm

    This site is great. I’m a second year student and this really helps!!

  4. Prudence on November 7th, 2008 11:09 am

    This is realy helpful, how l wish there are some free download on accounting.

  5. terrence p.monboe on November 19th, 2008 9:11 am

    thank you for the time you put in helping us to know more about the accounting.but we will be happy when you put in more qestions that help under the subject matter.

  6. fellini on November 26th, 2008 7:31 am

    I will please like to have an exapample of the trial balance

  7. jyo on January 28th, 2009 9:59 pm

    I will please like to have an example of the Trial Balance.

  8. Gabriel on February 6th, 2009 7:32 am

    How does one knows which accounts are debits and credits in the trial balance

  9. nimmi on February 8th, 2009 5:58 pm

    please explain prepairing a trial balance with some example with journal entry , ledger accounts , balance sheet .

  10. Gm on March 20th, 2009 9:08 am

    Pleae helpe me regarding Trial balance adusted, adjusted trial balance, income statement and balance sheet format i want to knoledge.

  11. keshanna hetsberger on April 6th, 2009 2:17 pm

    what debit & what have toi gredit on the trial balance

  12. kay on April 25th, 2009 9:19 am

    Pleae help me regarding Trial balance adusted, adjusted trial balance, income statement and balance sheet format i want more

  13. mimi on May 7th, 2009 11:34 pm

    please let us have an example of trail balance so that we can understand how to prepare and what are the steps.

  14. Catherine on May 13th, 2009 5:39 pm

    Please show me an example of the steps of the accounting cycle.

  15. joseph on May 16th, 2009 11:08 am

    Please help me regarding Trial balance adjusted, adjusted trial balance, income statement and balance sheet format i want more

  16. javed on May 21st, 2009 5:03 am

    Your website is really commendable and great to help the beginners of accountancy.

  17. khan on May 27th, 2009 1:05 pm

    dis website is really a great website…………..

    i am a student of bba and this website helped me alot to learn accounting

  18. jj on June 9th, 2009 2:32 am

    iam student want sample of how to prepare a trial balance

  19. Cee on June 15th, 2009 11:07 am

    This site is very helpful and at times more so than my text book.

  20. Anam on August 26th, 2009 3:47 am

    What is the zoro based budget?

  21. Anam on August 26th, 2009 3:47 am

    What is the zero based budget?

  22. Pervaiz on September 2nd, 2009 8:37 pm

    This is a geat web site. i like it very much.i gain too much knowledge from this web site.

    Thanx all,

    Pervaiz

  23. Joey on September 6th, 2009 5:30 am

    Cool site…though but a few examples would do great…..keep it up guys………

  24. swapnali on October 3rd, 2009 7:22 am

    sir, i want one accounting example. please give me step by step aacounting program.

  25. Warren on October 8th, 2009 4:01 pm

    Job was done in previous financial year(accrued expense). Account only paid in this year. Must amount be reversed/written back and what is the best explanation concerning this. Thanks.

  26. Sachine on October 19th, 2009 5:56 am

    Need an explanation with example on write backs

  27. swetha.j.n on October 20th, 2009 4:09 am

    Show me the example for current liabilities into the trial balance sheet.

  28. jniz on October 23rd, 2009 8:52 am

    what is bank overdraft, interest paid, discount received, discount allowed, loan from a company, opening stock and closing stock? can u state which is liability, equity, asset, income, loss or revenue?
    thanks loads.
    anyway,, nice web!

  29. Haidz on October 27th, 2009 6:41 pm

    Great info, I’ve been trawling around and this works for me
    Have just opened a fashion shop with a friend. We sell clothes on behalf of others. Currently, our expenses are small; rent, power, a few flyers, milk, keys cut, some posters printed.
    We dont know what type of record to keep on a daily basis to show in and out, in order to show money we made and our percentage of profit on behalf of selling for them. We plan to keep the record and give all our invoices and the record to a bookeeper in the shop across the road. we want to use paper; should we get a ledger book and use debits and credits? can you point us to a sample of what the paper would look like written up (not words explaining how to write it up, but an photo image of the record written up). much appreciated, H

  30. Manohar Lal Sharma on October 29th, 2009 8:15 pm

    what is the entire excercise for preparing traial balance and balance sheet, pl.letme know the step by step excercise.

  31. gerry on November 11th, 2009 7:05 am

    is a bank overdraft shown on the debit or credit side of the trial balance?

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