After journal entries are made, the next step in the
accounting cycle is to post the journal entries into the
ledger.
Posting refers to the process of transferring entries in
the journal into the accounts in the ledger. Posting to
the ledger is the classifying phase of accounting.
An accounting ledger  refers to a book that consists of
all accounts used by the company, the debits and
credits under each account, and the resulting balances.
While the journal is referred to as Books of Original
Entry, the ledger is known as Books of Final Entry.
The Posting Process
Definition
The financial accounting term posting to the ledger
refers to the process of analyzing the credits and debits
appearing in journal entries, and recording those
Preparing a Trial Balance for Your Business
The first step toward interpreting the financial results of
your business is preparing a trial
balance report. Basically, a trial balance is a worksheet
prepared manually or spit out by your computer
accounting system that lists all the accounts in your
General Ledger at the end of an accounting period
(whether that’s at the end of a month, the end of a
quarter, or the end of a year).
If you’ve been entering transactions manually, you
create a trial balance by listing all the accounts with
their ending debit or credit balances. Then, you total
the debit and credit columns. If the totals at the bottom
of the two columns are the same, the trial is a success,
and your books are in balance.
The four basic steps to developing a trial balance are:
1. Prepare a worksheet with three columns.
One column is for account titles, another is for debits,
and the other is for credits.
transaction amounts in the proper accounts found in
the company's general ledger.
Explanation
An accounting ledger can be a book or database of
accounts.  The term general ledger refers to the book or
database containing assets, liabilities, owner's equity,
revenues and expenses.  Subsidiary ledgers can be used
to hold specific subgroups, such as assets, which then
roll up to the general ledger.
As part of the accounting cycle, journal entries are
posted to the company's general ledger.  This process
involves recording in the proper ledger account the
dollar value associated with each transaction's debit
and credit.
Once a debit or credit is posted to the general ledger, a
reference number is recorded alongside, or assigned to,
the corresponding journal entry.  This process provides
the accounting department with a tracking mechanism
to ensure all journal entries are eventually posted to the
company's general ledger.
2. Fill in all the account titles and record their
balances in the appropriate debit or credit columns.
3. Total the debit and credit columns.
4. Compare the column totals.
A successful trial balance is no guarantee that your
books are totally free of errors; it just means that all
your transactions have been entered in balance. You
still may have errors in the books related to how you
entered your transactions, including:
 You forgot to put a transaction in a journal or in
the General Ledger.
 You forgot to post a journal entry to the
General Ledger.
 You posted a journal entry twice in either the
General Ledger or in the journal itself.
 You posted the wrong amount.
 You posted a transaction to the wrong account