There should be mass balance and the charge balance between the reactants and the products
Mass balance : total no of individual atoms of each type should be balanced before and after the reaction
Charge balance : Overall charge of the reactants should be balanced with the overall charge of the products
You can balance,
1)by just looking at it
2)by Algebraic method given above or
3)by the redox method
You need to know how to get the oxidation numbers in order to use the oxidation method
