what is trial Balance, Format in excel - Financial Learning Class

what is Trial Balance

If all your ledgers have equal balances, you have a trial balance. If not, you have an overdraft. A trial balance is often prepared after each reporting period for a firm. Making a trial balance serves the goal of verifying the accuracy of an organization’s bookkeeping system.

There are two columns in the trial balance worksheet for debits and credits, which guarantee that a firm’s bookkeeping is mathematically proper.
A company’s debits and credits contain all its business transactions during a specific time, including the sum of accounts like assets, costs, and revenues.
A trial balance with equal debits and credits ensures that no mathematical errors exist, but the accounting systems may still include inaccuracies or errors.

unadjusted trial balance

The result of calculating account balances for each account in your records for a specific period is known as an unadjusted trial balance.

balance sheet vs trial balance

There is a significant distinction between a trial balance and a balance sheet in that the trial balance shows the ending balance for each account. Still, a balance sheet may combine several ending account balances into each line item. Trial balances and balance sheets differ in several ways.

Aggregation. Unlike the trial balance, which shows information at the account level, the balance sheet summarises data from numerous accounts (and is, therefore, more detailed).
Standards. In contrast to the trial balance, the balance sheet has a predetermined format that must be adhered to.
Usage. Unlike the trial balance, which is meant for internal use only, the balance sheet is available to the public for review by auditors.
Amount of information being reported. The trial balance is used to create additional reports, whereas the balance sheet is a final report.

Read more about Bank reconciliation statement

purpose of adjusted trial balance

After correcting entries have been completed, an adjusted trial balance gives you the summary totals of all your general ledger accounts.

closing trial balance

At the end of a reporting period, the closing trial balance lists all balance sheet accounts with non-zero balances. The post-closing trial balance is used to ensure that the sum of all debit balances equals the sum of all credit balances, which should equal zero. The post-closure trial balance has no revenue, cost, gain, loss, or summary account balances. These temporary accounts were closed, and their amounts were transferred to the retained earnings account as part of the closing procedure.