Ledger General Ledger, Subsidiary Ledger

A ledger contains summarized financial information that is classified by assignment to a specific account number using a Chart of Accounts. A ledger can be a physical book or also refer to software or spreadsheets where the financial information is recorded. A General Ledger contains a summary of all the information recorded in subsidiary ledgers, which are ledgers that break down and show more information according to classifications.Financial information for ledgers is taken from the company's journal. Also Known As: Book of Final Entry The general ledger is the main accounting record of a business which uses double-entry bookkeeping. It will usually include accounts for such items as current assets, fixed assets, liabilities, revenue and expense items, gains and losses. Each General Ledger is divided into debits and credits sections. The left hand side lists debit transactions and the right hand side lists credit transactions. This gives a 'T' shape to each individual general ledger account.

Posting in accounting is when the balances in subledgers and the general journal are forwarded into
the general ledger. Posting only transfers the total balance in a subledger into the general ledger, not individual transactions. An accounting manager may elect to engage in posting relatively infrequently, such as once a month, or perhaps as frequently as once a day. Subledgers are only used when there is a large volume of transaction activity in a certain accounting area, such as inventory, accounts payable, or sales. Thus, posting only applies to these larger-volume situations. For low-volume transaction situations, entries are made directly into the general ledger, so there are no subledgers and therefore no need for posting. For example, ABC International issues 20 invoices to its customers over a one-week period, for which the totals in the sales subledger are for sales of $300,000. ABC's controller creates a posting entry to move the total of these sales into the general ledger with a $300,000 debit to the accounts receivable account and a $300,000 credit to the revenue account. Posting is also used when a parent company maintains separate sets of books for each of itssubsidiary companies. In this case, the accounting records for each subsidiary are essentially the same as subledgers, so the account totals from the subsidiaries are posted into those of the parent

company. This may also be handled on a separate spreadsheet through a manual consolidation process. Posting has been eliminated in some accounting systems, where subledgers are not used. Instead, all information is directly stored in the accounts listed in the general ledger.
POSTING, in bookkeeping, is to list on the companys records, such as to list the detail of sales and purchases on the accounts receivable or payable records The process of transferring entries from a journal of original entry to a ledger book.

Ledger
The ledger is a special book in which transactions are recorded. In other words, a book in which accounts are kept. The ledger differs from other books in the way columns are drawn to record transactions as follows: Dr Date Details Folio The Ledger Amount Date Details Folio Cr Amount

Types of ledger: In a real business, there are so many accounts to keep and each account may need lots of space to record transactions for the whole accountingyear. For this reason, a business usually keeps, not one, but several ledgers. These ledgers are classified into three types:

Sales Ledger
The book (or set of books) in which the personal accounts of credit customers are kept. A credit customer is also called a debtor. The balance of a customers account shows the amount that the customer owes the business. Therefore, the total of balances in the sales ledger is the total amount the business is owed by its credit customers. This amount is called trade receivables or accounts receivables. Trade receivables is shown as a current asset in the balance sheet.

Purchases Ledger
The book (or set of books) in which the personal accounts of credit suppliers are kept. A credit supplier is also called a creditor. The balance of a suppliers account shows the amount that the business owes the supplier. Therefore, the total of balances in the purchases ledger is the total amount the business owes by its credit suppliers. This amount is called trade payables or accounts payables. Trade payables is shown as a current liability in the balance sheet.

General Ledger

The book (or set of books) in which all other accounts are kept.