Wiktionary
vb. 1 (context idiomatic accounting English) To add up all the debits and credits. 2 To put or keep any closed or conservative system or its analysis in balance.
Usage examples of "balance the books".
To balance the books, trading revenues from the Great Lakes would have to increase by some 300 per cent over the next three years and 15 per cent annually thereafter.
If only the calculation were that simple, your master could relax in the splendor of his Alexandrian villa while you went to Cairo to balance the books.
However I learned from Daphne's friend that my errant partner was to be discharged on 20 February 1919, leaving me with little or no time to balance the books.
Damn it, I'd like to save his life just once to balance the books.
All her life she had believed that everyone paid what was owed, though some required help to balance the books.
She might be a proper little Scrooge, with her cold efficiency and twanging voice and impersonal stare, but she didn't dress in that style, and paint in that artful way, to help balance the books.
The Negro accountant, Thor said, came in every Monday to double-check and balance the books.
It was an easy way for him to balance the books with me, and he was glad to grab it.
I was no Pollyanna when I came here, knew an inner-city hospital would always be struggling to balance the books.