Definition
A trial balance is a list of every general ledger account with its debit or credit balance at a date, used to check that total debits equal total credits.
What is a trial balance used for?
It’s the accountant’s first check before preparing financial statements. If the totals differ, something was posted one-sided. Balanced totals don’t prove the books are right, though: an entry posted to the wrong account still balances. Accountants also use an opening trial balance to bring opening balances from an old system into a new one.
Example: at 30 June, debits and credits both total EUR 2,486,300 across 64 accounts.
A trial balance isn’t a profit and loss statement or a balance sheet; those are formatted reports built from it.