Trial Balance report

The Trial Balance lists every account in your chart with its debit or credit balance at a date. It is the raw material both other reports are built from — the P&L is the income and expense lines, the Balance Sheet is the rest.

When you will use it

• Your accountant asks for it — it is the report they want first, at year end especially.

• Verifying a Xero import — the import check compares Nightbooks’ trial balance to Xero’s at the same date, account by account, to the cent.

• Hunting an oddity — a mis-coded transaction shows up as an account with a balance that should not be there.

How to read it

Debits sit on the left, credits on the right, and the totals always agree — Nightbooks’ double-entry ledger guarantees it. Assets and expenses normally carry debit balances; income, liabilities and equity normally carry credit balances. An account sitting on the wrong side (a negative bank account, a debit-balance income account) is usually the fastest clue to a coding mistake.