What Is Trial Balance?

In simple words ,it is a worksheet that shows the  records of expenses and incomes altogether.These are shown in such a manner so as to estimate about the profit or loss of any business.

The fundamental principle of Double entry system is that at any stage, the total of Debits must be equal to the total of credits. If entries are recorded and posted correctly, the ledger will reflect equal debits and credits, and the total credit balances will then be equal to the total debit balances.
Every business concern prepares Final Accounts at the end of the year to ascertain the result of the activities of the whole year. To ensure correct result, the concern must be free from doubt that the books of accounts have been correctly recorded throughout the year. Trial Balance is prepared to test the arithmetical accuracy of the books of accounts. As we know that under double entry system for every transaction, one account is debited and another account is credited with an equal amount. If all the transactions are correctly recorded strictly according to this rule, the total amount of Debit side of all the ledger accounts must be equal to that of Credit side of all the ledger accounts. This verification is done through Trial Balance.
If the trial balance agrees, we may reasonably assume that the books are correct. On the other hand, if it does not agree, it indicates that the books are not correct, and there are mistakes somewhere. The mistakes are to be detected and corrected; otherwise, correct result cannot be ascertained. There are, however, a few types of errors, which the trial balance cannot detect. In other words, the trial balance will agree in spite of the existence of those errors.

A trial balance is a financial statement prepared after the balancing off of the ledger accounts. It is mainly used to verify whether all entries have been correctly made into the various accounts in the ledger.