creditor account), both for £9 less, so the total of both columns will be £9 less, and will thus balance. An error of omission is when a transaction is completely omitted from the accounting records. As the debits and credits for the transaction would balance, omitting it would still leave the totals balanced. A variation of this error is omitting one of the ledger account totals from the trial balance (but in this case the trial balance will not balance). An error of reversal is when entries are made to the correct amount, but with debits instead of credits, and vice versa. For example, if a cash sale for £100 is debited to the Sales account, and credited to the Cash account. Such an error will not affect the totals. An error of commission is when the entries are made at the correct amount, and the appropriate side (debit or credit), but one or more entries are made to the wrong account of the correct type. For example, if fuel costs are incorrectly debited to the postage account (both expense accounts). This will not affect the totals. This can also occur due to confusion in revenue and capital expenditure. An error of principle is when the entries are made to the correct amount, and the appropriate side (debit or credit), as with an error of commission, but the wrong type of account is used. For example, if fuel costs (an expense account), are debited to stock (an asset account). This will not affect the totals. Compensating errors are multiple unrelated errors that would individually lead to an imbalance, but together cancel each other out. References Financial statements Accounting terminology de:Zwischenberichterstattung#Zwischenberichterstattung und internes Berichtswesen