What Are The Methods Of Preparing Trial Balance?

There are three methods for the preparation of Trial Balance;
1. Total or Gross Trial Balance.
2. Balance or Net Trial Balance.
Under the Total or Gross Trial Balance, the two sides of all the ledger accounts are totaled up. Thereafter, a list of all the accounts is prepared in a separate sheet of paper with two "amount" columns on the right-hand side. The first one for debit amounts and the second one for credit amounts. The total of debit side and credit side of each account is then placed on "Debit Amount" column and "Credit Amount" column respectively of the list. Finally, the two columns are added separately to see whether they agree or not. This method is generally not followed in practice.
Under Balance or Net Trial Balance, first of all the balances of all ledger accounts are drawn. Thereafter, the debit balances and credit balances are recorded in "Debit Amount" column and "Credit Amount" column respectively and the two columns are added separately to see whether they agree or not. This is the most popular method and generally followed.
The various steps involved in the preparation of "Balance Trial Balance" are:
a) Find out the balance of each account in ledger.
b) Write up the name of account in the first column.
c) Record the account number in second column.
d) Record the debit balance of each account in Debit column and credit balance in credit column.
e) Add up the debit and credit columns and record the totals.