Accounting
What is Trial Balance?
A trial balance is an accounting report that lists all general ledger accounts and their balances at a specific point in time, used to verify that total debits equal total credits and the books are in balance.
Explanation
The trial balance is a fundamental checkpoint in the accounting cycle — if it doesn't balance, there's an error somewhere in the ledger that must be found and corrected before financial statements can be prepared. In automated environments, the trial balance is generated directly from the GL and should balance automatically if entries are correctly posted. The value of automation in this context is ensuring that every source document is correctly extracted, coded, and posted — so the trial balance reflects reality rather than what was manually keyed. Errors caught early (at the document processing stage) don't compound into trial balance discrepancies at month-end.
How Rima relates
By automating document processing upstream, Rima reduces the trial balance errors that stem from manual keying mistakes — every extracted transaction includes a traceable audit trail back to the source document.
Learn about accounting automationRelated Terms
General Ledger (GL)
The master record of all financial transactions in a business, organized by account.
Journal Entry
A record of a financial transaction in the accounting system, showing which accounts are debited and credited.
Month-End Close
The monthly accounting process of finalizing all transactions, reconciling accounts, and producing financial statements.
Chart of Accounts
A structured list of all financial accounts used in a company's general ledger.
See it in action
Rima automates the manual document workflows accounting teams spend hours on every week.