fJl FARM ACCOUNTING 



balance off. That is, if he pays $185 for a horse, debiting 

 Tattle account, in error, and crediting Cash, the trial bal- 

 ance is in balance and the Cash account is correct, but 

 neither the Horse nor Cattle account shows the correct re- 

 sult. 



As a means of supplying amounts to be used in financial 

 statements, the trial balance is very useful. The balances 

 recorded in the trial balance piwnt figures in a very con- 

 eiae and convenient form, for use in the Statement of Re- 

 sources and Liabilities and the Loss and (Jain Statement. 



Time of Taking a Trial Balance. A trial balance is 

 taken usually at the close of a month or year after all the 

 transactions are entered in the ledger. It is possible and 

 sometimes practical in commercial bookkeeping to take a 

 trial balance at the close of each day's business. It can 

 be taken at any time during any day after all debits and 

 credits have been made in the ledger for all transactions 

 completed up to that time. It is taken before attempting 

 to prepare financial statements, but the statements can be 

 pn-pared without taking a trial balance if desired, as has 

 been illustrated in the preceding chapters. The trial bal- 

 ance shows the condition of the ledger accounts at any 

 given moment of time. No attempt should be made to 

 take a trial balance, however, until it is known with rea- 

 sonable certainty that all transactions have been refl 

 in the ledger by proper debit and credit entries of equal 

 amounts. 



In farm bookkeeping, a trial balance might be taken at 

 any time, but it is considered necessary to take it only 

 at the close of a fiscal year, since the amounts are not 

 needed oftener for financial statements, and transactions 

 are not numerous enough to cause many errors. When 

 transactions are numerous a trial balance taken at short 

 intervals enables one to find existing errors before their 

 location becomes too burdensome. 



