Interactive Worksheet: Balancing Accounts And The Trial Balance

by Ken Delaney-Moore, Sheffield Hallam University

Aims:

This worksheet deals with:

1. Balancing-off accounts
2. Preparing trial balances

Balancing - off accounts

Look at the following 'cash' account:

	Debits	£		Credits	£
1 8	Capital	2000	2 8	Bank	1500
4 8	Sales	150	3 8	Purchases	300
7 8	Sales	140	5 8	Creditor - K.Lucas	180
			6 8	Motor expenses	130

Q1. The 'balance' on this account is the difference between the totals of the debit and credit values. Enter this figure in the space provided (Don't use a £ sign). (Type your answer)

Q2. If this account were a pair of scales, and the values were represented by £1 coins, which side would weigh the most, the 'debit' or the 'credit'? (Type your answer) Credit - Debit

Q3. Now try to complete the task of balancing - off this account by filling - in the gaps in the following text. (Type your answer)

Drawing-up a trial balance

The important figure in any account is the balance 'b/d', i.e. the figure underneath the totals. The side on which this figure appears represents the real balance. In the above example we have a balance b/d of £180 on the debit side. This is therefore referred to as a 'debit' balance, and is placed in the trial balance in the debit column as follows:

'Any old business', trial balance at (date)	£ Dr	£ Cr
Cash account	180

N.B. If there is only one entry in the account overall, then this entry IS the balance b/d. On such occasions it is not normally necessary to go through the balancing-off procedure, unless your tutor tells you otherwise.

An exercise in balancing-off accounts and drawing-up a trial balance

Below is a link to a file containing a set of accounts which need balancing-off. We recommend that you open it up by right-clicking your mouse and selecting 'open in new window'. You will need to keep switching between that file and the exercise below, so you can either:

1. Print-off the file and keep it beside you; or
2. If you press the 'alt' and 'tab' buttons together you will be able to switch between browser windows (the 'tab' button is above the 'caps lock' button on most keyboards; it has a couple of arrows on it).

Here is the link to set of accounts

Q4. When you think you know what the balances are, fill-in the following (the first one has been done for you). Leave out the £ sign and commas and insert a single space between the amount and the word, as in the first example (capital account). (Type your answer)