TRIAL BALANCE Definition

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TRIAL BALANCE is a listing of the accounts in your general ledger and their balances as of a specified date. A trial balance is usually prepared at the end of an accounting period and is used to see if additional adjustments are required to any of the balances. Since the basic accounting system relies on double-entry bookkeeping, a trial balance will have the same total debit amount as it has total credit amounts.

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NONSAMPLING RISK is audit risk not due to sampling. An auditor may apply a procedure to all transactions or balances and fail to detect a material misstatement. Nonsampling risk includes the possibility of selecting audit procedures that are not appropriate to achieve a specific objective. For example, confirming recorded receivables cannot reveal unrecorded receivables. Nonsampling risk can be reduced to a negligible level through adequate planning and supervision.

SPONTANEOUS LIABILITIES are obligations that are realized automatically, in the course of operating a company day-to-day, when a company buys goods and services on credit.

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