> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hitaji360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Trial Balance

> The Trial Balance lists every account in your chart with its opening balance, the movement during the period, and its closing balance — each split into…

The Trial Balance lists every account in your chart with its opening balance, the movement during the period, and its closing balance — each split into debit and credit columns. It's the accountant's first check that the books are in order: total debits must equal total credits. If they don't, something is out of balance and the other statements can't be trusted until it's fixed.

You'll find this at: `/accounting/reports/trial-balance`

> 📷 *Screenshot: Trial Balance with the account tree, the debit/credit/difference totals strip, and the filter row — to be added.*

## When to use it

* At month- or year-end, to confirm the ledger balances before you produce the Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss.
* To get a one-page view of where every account stands, grouped by the structure of your chart.
* To spot accounts sitting on the wrong side (for example a bank account showing a credit balance) before they distort a statement.
* As a launch pad: click any account to drill straight into its postings.

## How to run it

The Trial Balance is a *cumulative* report, so it uses two dates:

1. **From** — the start of the window. Balances before this date are summarised into the **Opening** columns.
2. **As of** — the closing date. The **Period** columns show movement between *From* and *As of*; the **Closing** columns show the resulting balance at *As of*.

Set the two dates directly, or pick a **period preset** (This Month, Last Month, This Quarter, Year to Date) from the dropdown to fill them in. The report re-runs automatically when you change a filter.

### Filters

* **Root** — limit the report to one section of the chart: **All**, **Asset**, **Liability**, **Equity**, **Income**, or **Expense**.
* **Compare** — attach a comparative block to each account: **None**, **Prior period** (the equivalent window immediately before), or **Prior year** (the same window one year earlier).
* **Hide zero** — drop accounts whose opening, period, and closing figures are all zero, so only accounts with activity remain. Parent/group rows stay visible when any account beneath them survives the filter.

> 📷 *Screenshot: The Root segmented control, Compare dropdown, and Hide-zero toggle — to be added.*

## Reading the columns

The report is shown as a tree that mirrors your chart of accounts. Parent (group) rows roll up the totals of the accounts beneath them; the page totals are taken from the leaf accounts only, so nothing is double-counted.

| Column                             | Meaning                                                                               |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Account Code / Account**         | The account number and name, indented to show its place in the chart hierarchy.       |
| **Opening Debit / Opening Credit** | The account's balance as it stood at the start of the window (the day before *From*). |
| **Period Debit / Period Credit**   | The total debits and credits posted to the account within the window.                 |
| **Closing Debit / Closing Credit** | The resulting balance at *As of* — opening plus the period's movement.                |

Each account's balance lands in the debit *or* the credit column depending on which side it naturally sits.

### The totals strip

Above the tree, three figures summarise the whole report:

* **Total debit** — sum of all closing debit balances (leaf accounts).
* **Total credit** — sum of all closing credit balances (leaf accounts).
* **Difference** — total debit minus total credit. **This must be zero.** A non-zero difference is highlighted in red and means the ledger is out of balance — usually an unbalanced or partially-posted entry somewhere in the window. Investigate before relying on any statement.

The report also flags an individual account as **out of balance** when it carries a balance on the opposite side to the one it's configured to require (for example a control account set to "must be debit" that ends the period in credit).

## Drilling in

The Trial Balance is interactive:

* **Click an account name** to open its **Account Ledger** — every posting behind that closing balance, for the report's window.
* **Click an amount** (opening / period / closing) to jump to the **General Ledger** filtered to that account, opening it pre-scoped to the right date window so you can see the lines that built the figure.

## Comparative view

With **Compare** set to Prior period or Prior year, each account also carries the comparative window's opening, period, and closing figures, so you can read this period beside the last at a glance.

## Exporting

Use **Export** for CSV, Excel (.xlsx), or PDF. The export includes every account row with its code, name (indented to show depth), root type, whether it's a group, and all six debit/credit columns, followed by the **Totals** and **Difference** rows. PDF and Excel are laid out in landscape to fit all ten columns.

## Tips and gotchas

* **Difference must be zero.** If it isn't, fix the unbalanced entry before producing other reports — the Balance Sheet's "balanced" check and the Cash Flow reconciliation depend on it.
* The Trial Balance reflects **posted** activity. Draft (unposted) journals are excluded by default.
* For a closed or locked period, the figures come from the **frozen snapshot** taken at close and won't change even if a later correcting entry is posted in a subsequent month.
* A short cache means re-opening the same view within a minute returns instantly; change a date or filter to force a fresh computation.

## Related

* [Reports overview](/accounting/user/reports/overview)
* [General Ledger](/accounting/user/reports/general-ledger) — the postings behind each balance
* [Balance Sheet](/accounting/user/reports/balance-sheet)
* [Profit & Loss](/accounting/user/reports/profit-and-loss)