A trial balance is a simple accounting report that lists all of your business’s accounts — assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses — along with their ending balances at a specific point in time.

A Chart of Accounts (COA) is simply the master list of all the accounts a business uses to record financial transactions. Think of it as the “filing cabinet” for your bookkeeping system—each account is like a folder where specific types of income, expenses, assets, or liabilities are tracked. In other words, if bookkeeping is the process of recording transactions, the Chart of Accounts is the roadmap that tells you where each transaction belongs.