1. WHY DO WE DO A TRIAL BALANCE? Periodically it is necessary to check the accuracy of the ledger (your T-accounts) TRIAL BALANCETo do this we use a form called a TRIAL BALANCE Trial Balance

2. WHAT IS A TRIAL BALANCE? TRIAL BALANCETRIAL BALANCE - is simply the listing of the account balances in a ledger – it is used to see if the dollar value of the accounts with debit balances is equal to the dollar value of the accounts with credit balances 4.4 Trial Balance

3. KEY TERMS IN BALANCEIN BALANCE – if the debits equal the credits OUT OF BALANCEOUT OF BALANCE – if the debits don’t equal the credits 4.4 Trial Balance

4. STEPS TO CREATE A TRIAL BALANCE 1)Include the heading (who, what, when) 2)List all the accounts and their balances. 3)Place the debit balances in a debit column and the credit balances in a credit column. 4)Add up the 2 columns. 5)See if the 2 column totals are the same.

9. Trial Balance Example

10. ACCOUNTS DebitsCredits

11. If the 2 columns balance does that mean I did it right? NO 4.4 Trial Balance Sometimes the errors made were incorrect entries that just happened to be balanced.. This takes some skill to detect and solve