Skip to content

trial-balance-generator

Aggregate all posted journal entries for an accounting period into a structured trial balance. The trial balance is the foundation for financial statement preparation — every financial statement line is derived from it.

  • Area: Finance
  • Category: finance
  • Level: beginner
  • Input: data
  • Output: spreadsheet
  • Setup: none
  • Roles: Finance Manager

Aggregates all posted journal entries for a period into a trial balance — opening balances, period movements, and closing balances per account.

How you ask

  • “Prepare period-end management accounts”
  • “Generate financial statements”
  • “Validate GL integrity”

Inputs

  • period-record — Accounting period record — defines the range the trial balance covers.
  • period_id — Accounting period ID, e.g. 2025-12
  • period — {books_root}/PERIODS/{period_id}.md
  • journals_folder — {books_root}/JOURNALS/ — scanned for posted JEs
  • current_period_id — Current period id used to side-by-side trial balance with current and prior period, variance column
  • prior_period_id — Prior period id used to side-by-side trial balance with current and prior period, variance column
  • period_id — Period id used to check that total debits equal total credits; flag imbalances and draft JEs

Outputs

  • comparative-trial-balance (markdown)
  • trial-balance (markdown)
  • validation-report (markdown)
  • {scope.finance.reports}/TB-{current_period_id}-comparative.md
  • {scope.finance.reports}/TB-{period_id}-validation.md
  • {scope.finance.reports}/TB-{period_id}.md