Trial balance : Practice Questions

What is the main purpose of preparing a trial balance?

A company's trial balance initially balanced. However, the following errors were later discovered:

1. A credit sale of HK$700 to Customer A was completely omitted from the books.

2. A payment of HK$1,200 for cleaning services was correctly credited to Cash but debited to the Stationery Expense account instead of Cleaning Expense.

3. The Purchases account debit balance of HK$5,000 was incorrectly transferred to the trial balance as a credit balance of HK$5,000.

4. Rent expense of HK$900 was recorded twice in the Rent Expense account (i.e., debited twice) but credited once to Cash.

What is the net effect of these errors on the trial balance agreement?

In the preparation of a trial balance, state whether the balances of Rent Received and Prepaid Insurance should be placed in the debit or credit column respectively.

A business accountant made the following errors during the accounting period:
1. Purchased office supplies for \(\$500\) cash, but only recorded a debit to Office Supplies, omitting the credit to Cash.
2. Paid a supplier \(\$800\), correctly debited Accounts Payable but mistakenly credited Bank with \(\$80\).
3. Purchased a machine for \(\$1,200\) and correctly recorded it, but later posted the debit amount as \(\$2,100\) and the credit amount as \(\$1,200\).
4. Received \(\$600\) cash from a customer, but no entry was made in the books.

Identify which of these errors would cause the trial balance to show an unequal total. For any error that would NOT affect the equality of the trial balance, explain why.

A trainee accountant prepared a trial balance for 'Global Trading' as at 30 June 2024, but the total of the debit column did not match the total of the credit column.

Required:
(a) State two main functions of preparing a trial balance. (2 points)
(b) Identify and explain two types of accounting errors that would not cause the trial balance totals to differ. (2 points)

A junior clerk prepared the trial balance for Modern Decor as at 31 May 2024. Although the total debits equaled the total credits, the owner suspected that several accounting errors had occurred during the month.

Required:
(a) State two main purposes of preparing a trial balance. (2 points)
(b) Identify and explain two types of accounting errors that would not be detected by a trial balance (i.e., the trial balance still balances despite these errors). (2 points)