What is a trial balance, how do I produce one from my books, and how do I read it?

What is a trial balance, and where does it come from?

AccountingTools' trial balance definition calls it "an accounting report that lists the ending balance in each general ledger account". So nobody is asking you to build a document: the trial balance is those balances, read off the ledger as at one date, one account per line. Any system that keeps a ledger can list them, even if it gives the report another name.

Treat it as a listing of ledger accounts, not a financial statement: it is not arranged to show profit or financial position, so draw no conclusions about either from it. Reading the profit and loss and the balance sheet is a separate question.

What do the Debit and Credit columns mean?

Each type of account has a normal side, and most balances sit there. The AICPA's accounting glossary defines a debit as an entry that adds to an asset or expense or reduces a liability or revenue, so assets and expenses normally sit in Debit and liabilities in Credit. Nebraska's state accounting manual records increases to revenues and to equity as credits, so both normally sit in Credit. AccountingTools' drawing account definition places the drawing account in a business "organized as a sole proprietorship or a partnership" and calls it "a contra equity account", so owner's draws normally sit in Debit.

The Debit total adds every debit balance and the Credit total adds every credit balance.

A balance in the opposite column can be legitimate, such as a card account you overpaid, but AccountingTools' normal-balance definition says "these situations should be in the minority". Each one needs an explanation you can give.

Which version does the person asking want?

The same ledger gives three versions, depending on what has been posted when you run the report:

• Before adjustments. AccountingTools' trial balance definition says "When the trial balance is first printed, it is called the unadjusted trial balance". Its article on trial balance errors gives one use of this version as "the starting point for adjusting entries", which is why an accountant who will make your period-end adjustments may want it.
• After adjustments. The same definition calls it the adjusted trial balance once the accounting team corrects errors and "makes adjustments to bring the financial statements into compliance with an accounting framework".
• After the close. AccountingTools' definition says the post-closing trial balance holds the beginning balances for the next year.

AccountingTools' drawing account definition says the drawing account tracks owners' distributions for a single year, "after which it is closed out". So a year-end post-closing report carries no balance in the drawing account.

Which version is meant is the requester's call. AccountingTools' trial balance definition says the general ledger accountant, or the bookkeeper in a smaller business, uses it "as part of the month-end and year-end closing process", which can mean either side of the adjustments, so ask. What you can send depends on where your books stand:

How do I produce it with the right date, basis and adjustments?

When a lender, accountant or other outside party asks, agree three settings with them before you run anything, because they set them, not you:

• As-at date. Use their date, not today's. If your system asks for a date range rather than one date, run it from the first day of the tax year to the requester's date and put the range on the label if the report shows one. IRS Publication 583 says you close income and expense accounts at the end of each tax year, so starting the range there gives year-to-date income and expense lines.
• Basis. Cash or accrual. The same date gives different balances on each basis, so the basis belongs in both the request and the output, and if your books are kept on the cash basis, say so when you agree the settings. Zoho's undated "Manage Reports" help page for Zoho Books offers a Report Basis setting ("Select the method of accounting to be displayed in your report") among its Customize Report filters, which that page says are available only on certain plans and only for the Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement and Invoice Details reports; it does not show the setting for a trial balance.
• Adjustment state. Before adjustments, after them, or after the close. What the ledger holds when you run the report decides this, so post or hold the period's adjustments to match, and post nothing else to the period until the report has gone.

Where the settings live differs by system and version. Intuit's "Run reports in QuickBooks Online" help page (updated August 5, 2026) has you choose a default accounting method, where you "select either Accrual or Cash", and says "Your reports will now default to the accounting method you selected". That page treats it as the setting for the method your business uses. If you change it to produce a report on the other basis, set it back as soon as the report has run. A default applies to everything you run afterwards, so check the basis shown on the report itself, and write it on if the report does not show it.

If your system has no report called a trial balance, look for one that lists every account with its balance, in separate debit and credit columns that are totalled or in one combined column, as at a chosen date. That is the report, whatever its name. If nothing like it exists, run a general ledger report to the same date and list each account's ending balance. Check how your report shows debit and credit balances, and say on what you send that you built the listing from the general ledger report.

How do I read it line by line?

Read it in this order:

1. Check the heading. The business, as-at date, basis and version should match the request, because a report on another date or basis makes correct books look wrong.
2. Compare each balance with its account type's normal column, and find an explanation for every balance in the opposite column. A contra account sits opposite its category by design.
3. Find balances that should be zero, such as an uncategorized or suspense account.
4. Find lines that are missing: accounts your activity implies that the report does not show.
5. Judge each amount against what you know: last year's figure, a bank or loan statement for the same date, and the size of the business.
6. Look at the totals last.

Here is a worked example. A sole-proprietor design studio keeps accrual-basis books, and its accountant asks for the trial balance as at December 31, before year-end adjustments.

On the cash basis, the same studio's revenue would count only what customers had paid by December 31, so its figures would differ, which is why the basis goes on the label.

What do equal totals prove, and what do they miss?

AccountingTools' trial balance definition says that total debits equalling total credits means "there are no unbalanced journal entries in the accounting system". That is all agreement proves. AccountingTools' article on trial balance errors says "A trial balance fails to detect errors that do not affect the equality of debits and credits". That article names four such errors:

• Omission. A transaction is never entered, such as a supplier bill left in a drawer.
• Error of principle. An entry breaks an accounting rule, such as an owner's personal purchase recorded as a business expense.
• Compensating errors. Two mistakes of the same size cancel each other out.
• Wrong account. The correct amount goes to the wrong account, such as a software bill posted to office supplies.

The same article adds that such errors "require reconciliations, analytical procedures, and detailed review to identify"; reconciling your accounts is a separate question.

An amount keyed wrongly into both sides of an entry, like the software line in the example, balances too. So keep reading the opposite-side and implausible lines even when the totals agree. If the totals do not agree, finding the cause is a separate question.

What should a normal trial balance look like for my business?

Derive the expectation from what your business does, not from a sample report. Each activity implies lines:

On a report before the close, asset and liability lines should show what the business has and owes at the date, and each should be explainable against any outside figure for the same date, such as a bank or loan statement. The equity lines include the year's draws. Holding accounts should read zero. Your own trial balance from the same date last year on the same basis and in the same version, if you have one, is the closest specimen: explain any line that is new, has gone, or has moved far from last year's figure.

What should I send, and how should I label it?

The recipient works from the figures, so send a file, not a picture. AccountingTools' trial balance definition says "the year-end trial balance is typically asked for by auditors when they begin an audit", "so that they can transfer the account balances on the report into their auditing software". A screenshot cannot be loaded and may cut off lines.

Put these on the report or its file name, and repeat them in your covering message:

• The business's legal name
• The report's name in your system
• The as-at date
• The basis, cash or accrual
• The version: before adjustments, after adjustments or after the close
• The date and time you ran it

Send a spreadsheet export so the recipient can load the figures, with a PDF from the same run so both show the same numbers. Intuit's "Run reports in QuickBooks Online" page, for example, lists "Export to Excel or Export as CSV" and "Print/Save as PDF" under the report's Export/Print menu. Produce both after your last entry to the period; if you later correct anything in the version you sent, produce and send both again, marked as replacing the first. Posting the period's adjustments or closing it produces a different version; send that only if asked, labelled as that version.