About PractiBalance
PractiBalance is a free practice site for journal entries. You read a business transaction, build its entry by placing account chips in the Debit and Credit columns and typing the amounts, and check it. A deterministic checker in your browser compares the net effect of your entry on each account with the answer and tells you exactly what differs. There is nothing to install and no sign-up, and the site is funded by advertising.
Four conventions
The same transaction is recorded differently from one country, and one textbook, to the next. So you choose the convention you were taught, and every entry is checked against the answer for that convention:
- United States (US textbooks): the account names used in US introductory textbooks.
- Spain (PGC 2007): the accounts and codes of the Spanish Plan General de Contabilidad.
- France (PCG 2025): the accounts and codes of the French Plan comptable général, 2025 version.
- Germany (generic accounts): generic German account names, as in German school material, without SKR account numbers.
The convention is a setting of its own, separate from the language of the page. How checking works explains the checker and the conventions in detail.
Who it is for
Anyone who has to record transactions as journal entries by hand and wants to know whether they got them right: students of introductory financial accounting and bookkeeping in the United States, vocational (FP) and business (ADE) students in Spain, BTS CG and DCG students in France, and commercial trainees preparing for Berufsschule and IHK exams in Germany. Teachers are welcome to use it in class.
How the entries are written and checked
- Every transaction, assumption and explanation is written for this site. Nothing is copied from textbooks or other exercise collections.
- Every Spanish and French account code and name is checked against the official texts: the Plan General de Contabilidad as published in Spain's official gazette (BOE), and the PCG 2025 chart of accounts published by France's accounting standards authority (ANC). The sources are listed on the credits page.
- Automated checks run on every entry: every accepted answer must balance; every line that moves an account against its normal balance must be declared in the item, as a guard against sign slips; and hundreds of random sets of amounts are drawn for each entry and convention to make sure every amount comes out in whole cents.
- Every entry is reviewed independently before it is published. Only reviewed entries appear on the site.
Disagree with an answer?
Each entry states its assumptions above the columns, such as the inventory system or the VAT rate, and the answer follows from them. If you believe a correct entry is marked wrong, or that an answer or explanation is wrong, please get in touch at contact@practibalance.com and quote the report reference shown under the entry. It names the entry, its revision, the convention and the set of amounts, so your entry can be reproduced exactly. A disputed entry gets tighter assumptions, an additional accepted answer, or is removed; a corrected entry gets a new revision number.
Who runs the site
Owner details not yet added. The name of the person who runs this site must be set in src/site.config.ts before launch.