Difference Between Trial Balance and Balance Sheet with Format

The total expenses are subtracted from the total income in order to get the net income of the company which is displayed in the income statement. The balance sheet basically reports the entity’s total liabilities and assets and the stockholder’s equity on a particular date. To learn more about balance sheets, students can visit Vedantu’s study material on the balance sheets. Trial Balance is a part of the accounting process, which is a summary of debit and credit balances taken from all the ledger accounts. Every transaction affects two sides, i.e. every debit has a corresponding credit and the reverse is also true. The balance sheet is prepared using the accounting equation stating that assets must always equal liabilities plus equity.

While they both play crucial roles in presenting a company’s financial position, they differ in scope and purpose. In this article, we’ll examine the differences between the balance sheet and trial balance. Since the balance sheet is prepared with the closing balance of the ledger accounts at the end of the year therefore it is also known as the second trial balance. There are two sides to a balance sheet which are the assets side and the liabilities side. Accounts having debit balances are shown on the asset side and credit balances are shown on the liabilities sides and both sides should be matching.

What are the key differences between trial balance vs. balance sheet?

Debits are the side of an account which shows the increase in assets, decrease in liabilities and capital. Credits means opposite i.E., Decrease in assets, increase in liabilities or capital accounts. Balance Sheet is like a mirror of the business as it shows the status of the company at a particular date, in just one glance.

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• If every transaction was recorded properly, there should be a perfect match between the sum of credits and the sum of debits in the given time period.
• Every transaction affects two sides, i.e. every debit has a corresponding credit and the reverse is also true.
• A balance sheet is ideally prepared on the last day of a financial year, and it is of utmost importance to follow the set arrangement of total assets, liabilities, and stockholders’ equity.
• However, the figures in the trial balance do not indicate accuracy, and it is entirely possible that an item or transaction may have been missed or a wrong expense account has been entered.

Trial balances are neither a part of final accounts nor a part of financial statements whereas a balance sheet is a part of both financial statements and final accounts. This means, at the stage summarization of all accounts takes place at this stage. A trial balance is a statement prepared at a specific date with debit and credit balances of various ledger accounts, for testing the arithmetical accuracy of the company’s books of accounts.

What is a Trial Balance?

External users use balance sheets to assess a company’s financial status and liquidity. Both sets of users may rely on ratios to compare the company’s financial position to benchmarks. Once the balance sheet accounts are tied out, the adjusted trial balance can create the income statement and balance sheet. The income statement tracks the results of operations over time, while the balance sheet tracks the cumulative impacts of operations on assets, liabilities, and stockholder’s equity. Besides correcting apparent errors, other adjustments may be needed as part of the accounting cycle to ensure that the numbers comply with accounting principles.

• According to this equation, an organization’s assets must be balanced by the sum of its liabilities plus shareholders’ equity.
• The balance sheet and the profit and loss (P&L) statement are two of the three financial statements companies issue regularly.
• It reflects the assets – what the company owns, and liabilities – what the company does.
• The general purpose of producing a trial balance is to ensure that the entries in a company’s bookkeeping system are mathematically correct.
• Though both of these are a little oversimplified, this is often how the P&L statement and the balance sheet tend to be interpreted by investors and lenders.

When used together along with other financial documents, the balance sheet and P&L statement can be used to assess the operational efficiency, year-to-year consistency, and organizational direction of a company. For this reason the numbers reported in each document are scrutinized by investors and the company’s executives. While the presentation of these statements varies slightly from industry to industry, large discrepancies between the annual treatment of either document are often considered a red flag. Assets are anything a company owns that has value, such as cash, inventory, buildings, and equipment. A company’s liabilities are debts and obligations, such as loans, accounts payable, and taxes.

Balance Sheet Vs Trial Balance

If the final balance in the ledger account (T-account) is a debit balance, you will record the total in the left column of the trial balance. If the final balance in the ledger account (T-account) is a credit balance, you will record the total in the right column. Trial balance is primarily an accounting report that helps in balancing the general ledger accounts of a company. In a trial balance report, it can be seen that one column includes credit amounts, and the other, debit amounts. It has to be noted that the aggregate of these two columns should have to be necessarily identical.

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 balance sheet is one of the five financial statements that are distributed outside of the accounting department and are often distributed outside of the company. The balance sheet summarizes and reports the balances from the asset, liability, and stockholders’ equity accounts that are contained in the company’s general ledger. The balance sheet is also referred to as the statement of financial position. It may be issued only for internal use, or it may also be intended for such outsiders as lenders and investors.

Head to Head Comparison between Trial Balance vs Balance Sheet (Infographics)

The name “balance sheet” is derived from the way that the three major accounts eventually balance out and equal each other. All assets are listed in one section, and their sum must equal the sum of all liabilities and the shareholder equity. A balance sheet reports a company’s assets, liabilities and shareholder equity at a specific point in time. It provides a basis how to prepare an adjusted trial balance for your business for computing rates of return and evaluating the company’s capital structure. This financial statement provides a snapshot of what a company owns and owes, as well as the amount invested by shareholders. A trial balance is a statement which lists all the balances of the Real, Personal and Nominal Accounts irrespective of the Capital or Revenue nature of the accounts.

Enron defrauded thousands by intentionally inflating revenues that did not exist. Arthur Andersen was the auditing firm in charge of independently verifying the accuracy of Enron’s financial statements and disclosures. This meant they would review statements to make sure they aligned with GAAP principles, assumptions, and concepts, among other things. Note that for this step, we are considering our trial balance to be unadjusted.

Table 1: Trial balance and balance sheet difference

Such adjustments are relevant only for the particular accounting year. Trial balance also helps in the comparative analysis with a previous year’s balances and the current one. The main purpose is to give insight to the potential and existing investors about the position and the financial well-being of a company. Here’s an example of a trial balance for XYZ Co. as of December 31, 202X. By convention, the debit column is on the left, and the credit column is on the right.