The document discusses the process of posting journal entries to individual accounts in the general ledger and preparing a trial balance. It explains that a trial balance is a list of open ledger accounts and their balances that is prepared to verify the equality of debits and credits. The document also outlines some common errors that can occur in a trial balance such as transposition errors, sliding errors, and amounts posted to the wrong side of an account. Steps for locating errors in an unbalanced trial balance are provided.

1. Posting to the General Ledger
and Preparing the Trial Balance
1 August 2013

2. Introduction
• There is a need for another record in which data
appearing in the journal may be summarized to
show the status of each item or account.
• A group of accounts constitutes a ledger.
• The general ledger is also known as the book of
final entry.
• The process of transferring the data from journal
entries to the individual account in the ledger is
called posting.

3. Forms of General Ledger
Standard Form
Running Balance Form

4. The Chart of Accounts
• A chart of accounts is a listing of all the account
titles being used by the business in its operations
including their respective account numbers, at
the time the business is organized.

5. The Trial Balance
• The trial balance is a list of schedule of open
accounts in the general ledger with their
corresponding account balances, i.e., the
difference between the total debits and total
credits of an account in the ledger.
• It is prepared to verify the equality of debits and
credits in the ledger at the end of each
accounting period or at any time the postings are
updated.

6. The Trial Balance, Characteristics:
• It is a list of accounts.
• The list of accounts is unclassified; it does not
attempt to state whether accounts listed are
assets or liabilities, current or long term.
• The accounts listed are normally those with open
balances, that is, they have peso amount
balances.
• The accounts are listed in ledger orders

7. The Trial Balance, Limitations:
Experience proves that not all the trial balances
that we prepare are balanced. The following are
the steps in locating errors in the trial balance:
• Prove the addition of the trial balance by adding
columns in the opposite direction from that
previously followed.

8. The Trial Balance, Limitations:
• If the error does not lie in the
addition, determine the exact amount by which
the trial balance is out of balance. The amount of
the discrepancy is often a clue to the source of
the error.

9. The Trial Balance, Limitations:
• If the difference is divisible by 9, this suggests
either a:
• Transposition Error - An interchange in the
order of the digits of a number, e.g., 87 for 78;
453 for 354; 1234 for 4231; etc.
• Transplacement Error - Also known as sliding
error, occurs when some or all the digits of a
number are moved one or more places to the left
or right, e.g., 450.00 written as 45.00 or as 4.50
or as 4005.00.

10. The Trial Balance, Limitations:
• If the difference is an even number, divide it by
2. The quotient could be the balance of an
account that is erroneously copied to the trial
balance on the wrong side or the amount of a
journal entry that is posted on the wrong side of
the ledger.

11. The Trial Balance, Limitations:
• Compare the amounts in the trial balance with
the balances in the ledger. Be sure that no
account is omitted.
• Recompute the balance of each ledger account.