Trial Balance - General Ledger Accruals

A trial balance is a listing of balances per account code at a point in time. It includes both profit and loss and balance sheet accounts.

• Profit and loss accounts balance represents the income or expense for the year to date, as profit and loss accounts get cleared to retained earnings each year and start with a nil balance each year.
• Balance sheet accounts balance represent an accumulated balance on the account.

Some general accounting systems also contain reports which are called trial balances, which represent the movement in account balances for a period. As the name suggests a trial balance should balance, i.e. the total and the debits and credits should come to nil. If it does not there is an error as with double entry accounting debits should always equal credits.

Cash and accruals basis

cirrus8 trail balance can be run on cash or accruals basis. 

• The cash trial balance does not have a debtors and creditors balance, as these only exist on the accruals basis.
• The accruals trial balance has debtors and creditors and the figures all get used in the accrual profit and loss and balance sheet.

Columns explained

• Opening balance is the balance of the account for the financial year up to the start of the reporting period. The total of the column must be 0 as positive numbers represent debits and negative figures credits.
• Debit and credit represent the movement in the account for the period being reported on. The debits must equal the credits.
• The YTD column is the balance of the account at the end of the reporting period and is a calculation of the numbers added across.