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Accountancy · Ch 7 — Trial Balance and Rectification of Errors

Terms Introduced in the Chapter

Terms Introduced in the Chapter

The key terms introduced in this chapter, with a short meanin …

Definition 1Trial Balance

A statement that lists the debit and credit balances (or totals) of all ledger accounts on a given date, prepared to verify the arithmetical accuracy of posting and to serve as the ba …

Definition 2Error of Commission

A clerical error such as wrong posting, wrong casting, wrong totalling or wrong balancing of an account, or recording a wrong amount in the books of original entry. Most errors of commission affect …

Definition 3Error of Omission

An error caused by leaving a transaction out of the books. It is a complete omission when the whole transaction is unrecorded, and a partial omission when the recording or posting is only partly done (e.g. entered in the subsi …

Definition 4Error of Principle

An error arising from the wrong classification of a receipt or payment between capital and revenue — for example, treating capital expenditure as a revenue expense. Such errors do not affect t …

Definition 5Compensating Error

Two or more errors whose net effect on the debits and credits cancels out, so the trial balance still agrees d …

Definition 6Suspense Account

A temporary account in which the difference in a trial balance that does not tally is placed, so that the financial statements can be prepared; it is closed as and when the one-sided errors causing the d …