For an accountant, nothing is more frustrating than a trial balance that doesn’t balance. But wait! We are getting ahead of ourselves here. Before we provide you with tips for preparing a trial balance, you might want to know what it really is.

Trial Balance

A trial balance is a workbook that balances the ledgers, which are divided into two categories: debit and credit. Companies usually prepare these towards the end of a fiscal year and the reason for this is to make sure that the company’s bookkeeping system is accurate.

The aforementioned information gives you an idea about the importance of a trial balance. Now let’s take a look at some tips for creating a trial balance:

Preparation of Trial Balance

When you start working on a trial balance, the first thing you’ll need to do is list down all the ledgers along with their account numbers (a four digit code assigned to an account).

Divide all the debit and credit transactions separately along with additional details like name and account number in four columns.

Once you’re done, calculate the total debit and credit amount for the period. Make sure you write the correct amount in respective columns. You know you haven’t made any error if the debit and credit amount is equal.

However, if that’s not the case, you’ll have to go through the ledgers all over again and detect the error. This can be quite a challenge especially if you’re creating a trial balance at the end of the year.

In order to avoid this issue, we suggest you create a trial balance at the end of each month. This way you will be able to detect errors immediately and fix them.

Furthermore, we also suggest you avoid preparing adjusting entries initially. Instead, we suggest you calculate the debit and credit amounts once again in order to make sure you didn’t make a calculation error.

If the problem persists, subtract the lower figure from larger one and look for the balancing amount in previous records.

There are some additional techniques, which you can follow as well. These include dividing the balancing amount by 2 and checking the accounts and columns.

Get In Touch With Professionals

You need to be really good with numbers in order to prepare a trial balance. If you’re struggling with it, we suggest you get in touch with professionals.

We can help. We offer accounting and professional bookkeeping services in Florida. In addition to that, we also offer florida business solutions. Contact us now at 1(954) 596-9966 or visit our website for further information.