What is a trial balance?

A trial balance lists every account in your books with its balance on one date, each as a debit or a credit. The two columns add up to the same total, because every entry has equal debits and credits.

It is a check, not a report for running the business. Equal totals do not prove the books are right: a charge filed to the wrong category still balances. That is why it goes with reconciled bank and card accounts.

Your CPA uses it at year end, mapping each balance as of December 31 onto the lines of the tax return. See what your CPA needs at year end.

Switchbooks has no trial balance page, but Switch builds one in the chat as of any date and can hand it to you as an Excel file. Balance sheet accounts show their balance on that date, income and expense accounts show that year's activity from January 1, and earlier years' profit sits on one Retained Earnings line.