Theme: a trial balance Plan

Theme: A trial balance
Plan:
1. What Is a Trial Balance?
2.Usege of A trial balance 
3. Requirements for a Trial Balance

A trial balance is a list of all the general ledger accounts (both revenue and capital) contained in the ledger of a business. This list will contain the name of each nominal ledger account and the value of that nominal ledger balance. Each nominal ledger account will hold either a debit balance or a credit balance. The debit balance values will be listed in the debit column of the trial balance and the credit value balance will be listed in the credit column. The trading profit and loss statement and balance sheet and other financial reports can then be produced using the ledger accounts listed on the same balance.

The first published description of the process is found in Luca Pacioli's 1494 work Summa de arithmetica, in the section titled Particularis de Computis et Scripturis. Although he did not use the term, he essentially prescribed a technique similar to a post-closing trial balance.
The purpose of a trial balance is to prove that the value of all the debit value balances equals the total of all the 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 an error in the nominal ledger accounts. This error must be found before a profit and loss statement and balance sheet can be produced. Hence trial balance is important in case of adjustments. Whenever any adjustment is performed run trial balance and confirm if all the debit amount is equal to credit amount.
The trial balance is usually prepared by a bookkeeper or accountant who has used daybooks to record financial transactions and then post them to the nominal ledgers and personal ledger accounts. The trial balance is a part of the double-entry bookkeeping system and uses the classic 'T' account format for presenting values.
A trial balance only checks the sum of debits against the sum of credits. That is why it does not guarantee that there are no errors. The following are the main classes of errors that are not detected by the trial balance.
An error of original entry is when both sides of a transaction include the wrong amount.For example, if a purchase invoice for £21 is entered as £12, this will result in an incorrect debit entry (to purchases), and an incorrect credit entry (to the relevant creditor account), both for £9 less, so the total of both columns will be £9 less, and will thus balance.
An error of omission is when a transaction is completely omitted from the accounting records.As the debits and credits for the transaction would balance, omitting it would still leave the totals balanced. A variation of this error is omitting one of the ledger account totals from the trial balance (but in this case the trial balance will not balance).
An error of reversal is when entries are made to the correct amount, but with debits instead of credits, and vice versa.For example, if a cash sale for £100 is debited to the Sales account, and credited to the Cash account. Such an error will not affect the totals.
An error of commission is when the entries are made at the correct amount, and the appropriate side (debit or credit), but one or more entries are made to the wrong account of the correct type. For example, if fuel costs are incorrectly debited to the postage account (both expense accounts). This will not affect the totals. This can also occur due to confusion in revenue and capital expenditure.
An error of principle is when the entries are made to the correct amount, and the appropriate side (debit or credit), as with an error of commission, but the wrong type of account is used. For example, if fuel costs (an expense account), are debited to stock (an asset account).This will not affect the totals.
Compensating errors are multiple unrelated errors that would individually lead to an imbalance, but together cancel each other out.
What Is a Trial Balance?
A trial balance is a bookkeeping worksheet in which the balances of all ledgers are compiled into debit and credit account column totals that are equal. A company prepares a trial balance periodically, usually at the end of every reporting period. The general purpose of producing a trial balance is to ensure that the entries in a company’s bookkeeping system are mathematically correct.
A trial balance is so called because it provides a test of a fundamental aspect of a set of books, but is not a full audit of them. A trial balance is often the first step in an audit procedure, because it allows auditors to make sure there are no mathematical errors in the bookkeeping system before moving on to more complex and detailed analyses.
A trial balance is a worksheet with two columns, one for debits and one for credits, that ensures a company’s bookkeeping is mathematically correct. 
The debits and credits include all business transactions for a company over a certain period, including the sum of such accounts as assets, expenses, liabilities, and revenues. 
Debits and credits of a trial balance must tally to ensure that there are no mathematical errors, but there could still be mistakes or errors in the accounting systems.
Preparing a trial balance for a company serves to detect any mathematical errors that have occurred in the double entry accounting system. If the total debits equal the total credits, the trial balance is considered to be balanced, and there should be no mathematical errors in the ledgers. However, this does not mean that there are no errors in a company’s accounting system. For example, transactions classified improperly or those simply missing from the system still could be material accounting errors that would not be detected by the trial balance procedure.
Requirements for a Trial Balance
Companies initially record their business transactions in bookkeeping accounts within the general ledger. Depending on the kinds of business transactions that have occurred, accounts in the ledgers could have been debited or credited during a given accounting period before they are used in a trial balance worksheet. Furthermore, some accounts may have been used to record multiple business transactions. As a result, the ending balance of each ledger account as shown in the trial balance worksheet is the sum of all debits and credits that have been entered to that account based on all related business transactions.
A company’s transactions are recorded in a general ledger and later summed to be included in a trial balance. 
At the end of an accounting period, the accounts of asset, expense, or loss should each have a debit balance, and the accounts of liability, equity, revenue, or gain should each have a credit balance. However, certain accounts of the former type also may have been credited and certain accounts of the latter type also may have been debited during the accounting period when related business transactions reduce their respective accounts’ debit and credit balances, an opposite effect on those accounts’ ending debit or credit balances. On a trial balance worksheet, all of the debit balances form the left column, and all of the credit balances form the right column, with the account titles placed to the far left of the two columns.
Types of Trial Balance
There are three main types of trial balance:
The unadjusted trial balance
The adjusted trial balance
The post-closing trial balance
All three of these types have exactly the same format but slightly different uses. The unadjusted trial balance is prepared on the fly, before adjusting journal entries are completed. It is a record of day-to-day transactions and can be used to balance a ledger by adjusting entries.
Once a book is balanced, an adjusted trial balance can be completed. This trial balance has the final balances in all the accounts, and it is used to prepare the financial statements. The post-closing trial balance shows the balances after the closing entries have been completed. This is your starting trial balance for the next year.
Trial Balance vs. Balance Sheet
The key difference between a trial balance and a balance sheet is one of scope. A balance sheet records not only the closing balances of accounts within a company but also the assets, liabilities, and equity of the company. It is usually released to the public, rather than just being used internally, and requires the signature of an auditor to be regarded as trustworthy.
A trial balance is a less formal document. There are no special conventions about how trial balances should be prepared, and they may be completed as often as a company needs them. A trial balance is often used as a tool to keep track of a company’s finances throughout the year, whereas a balance sheet is a legal statement of the financial position of a company at the end of a financial year.
Special Considerations
After all the ledger accounts and their balances are listed on a trial balance worksheet in their standard format, add up all debit balances and credit balances separately to prove the equality between total debits and total credits. Such uniformity guarantees that there are no unequal debits and credits that have been incorrectly entered during the double entry recording process. However, a trial balance cannot detect bookkeeping errors that are not simple mathematical mistakes. If equal debits and credits are entered into the wrong accounts, a transaction is not recorded, or offsetting errors are made with a debit and a credit at the same time, a trial balance still would show a perfect balance between total debits and credits.1
What is a trial balance used for?
A trial balance can be used to detect any mathematical errors that have occurred in a double entry accounting system. If the total debits equal the total credits, the trial balance is considered to be balanced, and there should be no mathematical errors in the ledgers.
What are the three trial balances?
There are three types of trial balance: the unadjusted trial balance, the adjusted trial balance, and the post-closing trial balance. Each is used at different stages in the accounting cycle.
What is included in a trial balance?
It depends. Companies can use a trial balance to keep track of their financial position, and so they may prepare several different types of trial balance throughout the financial year. A trial balance may contain all the major accounting items, including assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, expenses, gains, and losses.
The Bottom Line
A trial balance is a worksheet with two columns, one for debits and one for credits, that ensures a company’s bookkeeping is mathematically correct. The debits and credits include all business transactions for a company over a certain period, including the sum of such accounts as assets, expenses, liabilities, and revenues. 
Debits and credits of a trial balance must tally to ensure that there are no mathematical errors. However, there still could be mistakes or errors in the accounting systems. A trial balance can be used to assess the financial position of a company between full annual audits.
The trial balance is used to prepare financial statements from the ledger and journal entries. It is the basis for preparing the financial statements like balance sheet etc., and the final P&L accounts. The trial balance format and its objectives include:

Assessing the ledger accounts' arithmetical accuracy when the total credit is equal to the total debt.

Locating ledger and journal errors or inefficiencies in the many stages of the accounting system. Such errors may arise when posting the ledger or journal accounts with the many entries, calculation or manual errors in entering values, totalling the subsidiary ledgers/ journals, trial balance posting errors, etc.
Preparing the various financial statements like the P&L account, balance sheet, other financial statements, accounting records, etc.
Expenses and income entries are taken from ledger accounts for the P&L account,
Journal entries are required for the balance sheet.
Thus, the trial balance is the foundational bridge between the financial statements and the various accounting records.
Trial Balance Features:
The trial balance is a statement of accounts and not an account by itself. It is also never a part of the final financial statements.
It contains the summation of credit and debit balances drawn from the many ledger accounts in a trial balance format.
Its objective is to prove the arithmetic accuracy of its entries since, in a Trial balance, the credit and debit balances are equal. It does not verify the inaccuracies, however, which requires an audit to prove inaccuracies in the credit/debit balances.
Every accounting year has a Trial balance drawn at its end. If needed, such trial balance sheets can also be drawn monthly, half-yearly, quarterly, or even weekly.
It is the foundation stone of all account statements and the connecting bridge between the Profit and Loss Account, Books of accounts, and the Balance sheet.