Preparing a trial balance for a company serves to detect any mathematical errors that have occurred in the  accounting system. If the total debits equal the total credits, the trial balance is considered to be balanced, and there should be no mathematical errors in the ledgers. However, this does not mean there are no errors in a company's accounting system. For example, transactions classified improperly or those simply missing from the system could still be material accounting error that would not be detected by the trial balance procedure.