A trial balance may be prepared according to either of the following two methods:
Total method:
If the total of debit sides of all accounts in the ledger is placed in one column of the list and similarly total of credit sides of all the accounts in the ledger is placed in another column of the list then list of total will be known to have been prepared with the total methods.
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Balances method:
According to this system a trial balance is prepared on the basis of balances of accounts. It is based on the mathematical maxim that if equals are taken away from equals, results are equal. This method is simple and requires less work.