Phase 4: Trial Balance
Verify that total debits equal total credits across all accounts.
Purpose
The Trial Balance phase extracts closing balances from all ledger accounts and verifies that total debits equal total credits, serving as a checkpoint before adjustments.
Usage
/accounting:trial-balance <project>Prerequisites
The general ledger must exist at .metapowers/accounting/<project>/03-ledger.md.
What It Does
- Reads account balances from the general ledger
- Lists all accounts with their debit or credit balances
- Totals all debits and all credits
- Validates that totals match
- Flags discrepancies if found
- Writes the trial balance to
.metapowers/accounting/<project>/04-trial-balance.md
Output
Creates .metapowers/accounting/<project>/04-trial-balance.md containing:
- Unadjusted trial balance listing all accounts
- Total debits and total credits
- Balance verification status
Next Phase
After the trial balance, proceed to Adjust to record adjusting entries.