Organization's General Ledger

An Organization's General Ledger is a books of account composed of accounting ledgers that summarize all organizational monetary transactions (for an organization during some accounting period).

• AKA: GL, Book of Final Entry.
• Context:
  • It can (typically) be a Composite Database with GL Account Databases (e.g. cash-on-hand pages).
  • It can range from (typically) being a General Ledger Database to being a General Ledger Book.
  • It can (typically) include GL Account Posting Records for GL Accounts such as: GL Credit Accounts (liabilities, equity, gains, income, revenues) and GL Debit Accounts (assets, expenses, losses, dividends).
  • It can range from being a Detailed General Ledger to being a Summary General Ledger.
  • It can be used to create Financial Position Statements and Statements of Income.
  • It (typically) be a member of Books of Account.
  • It can (typically) be an input to a General Ledger Management Task.
• Example(s):
  • OpenGov's 2015-12-09 General Ledger.
  • Sausalito City's 2015-12-09 General Ledger.
  • School District 71973's 2015-12-09 General Ledger.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • a Bookkeeping Journal.
  • a Balance Sheet.
  • a Trial Balance.
  • an Organizational Budget.
• See: General Ledger Posting, [[ERP System], Subledger, Chart of Accounts, Financial Statement, Debits, Double-Entry Bookkeeping System, Accounting Equation, Accounting Method.

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References

2015

• (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/general_ledger Retrieved:2015-7-11.
  • A general ledger contains all the accounts for recording transactions relating to a company's assets, liabilities, owners' equity, revenue, and expenses. In modern accounting software or ERP, the general ledger works as a central repository for accounting data transferred from all subledgers or modules like accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, fixed assets, purchasing and projects. The general ledger is the backbone of any accounting system which holds financial and non-financial data for an organization. The collection of all accounts is known as ledger account. This may be a large book.

    The statement of financial position and the statement of income and comprehensive income are both derived from the general ledger. Each account in the general ledger consists of one or more pages. The general ledger is where posting to the accounts occurs. Posting is the process of recording amounts as credits (right side), and amounts as debits (left side), in the pages of the general ledger. Additional columns to the right hold a running activity total (similar to a chequebook).

    The listing of the account names is called the chart of accounts. The extraction of account balances is called a trial balance. The purpose of the trial balance is, at a preliminary stage of the financial statement preparation process, to ensure the equality of the total debits and credits.

    The general ledger should include the date, description and balance or total amount for each account. It is usually divided into at least seven main categories. These categories generally include assets, liabilities, owner's equity, revenue, expenses, gains and losses. The main categories of the general ledger may be further subdivided into subledgers to include additional details of such accounts as cash, accounts receivable, accounts payable, etc.

    Because each bookkeeping entry debits one account and credits another account in an equal amount, the double-entry bookkeeping system helps ensure that the general ledger is always in balance, thus maintaining the accounting equation: : [math]\displaystyle{ \mbox{Assets} = \mbox{Liabilities} + \mbox{(Shareholders or Owners equity)} }[/math]

    The accounting equation is the mathematical structure of the balance sheet. Although a general ledger appears to be fairly simple, in large or complex organizations or organizations with various subsidiaries, the general ledger can grow to be quite large and take several hours or days to audit or balance.

2014

• http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/generalledger.asp
  • QUOTE: A company's main accounting records. A general ledger is a complete record of financial transactions over the life of a company. The ledger holds account information that is needed to prepare financial statements, and includes accounts for assets, liabilities, owners' equity, revenues and expenses.

    A general ledger is typically used by businesses that employ the double-entry bookkeeping method - where each financial transaction is posted twice, as both a debit and a credit, and where each account has two columns. Because a debit record in one account is offset by a credit in a different account, the sum of all debits will be equal to the sum of all credits.

• http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/ledger.html
  • QUOTE: Collection of an entire group of similar accounts in double-entry bookkeeping. Also called book of final entry, a ledger records classified and summarized financial information from journals (the 'books of first entry') as debits and credits, and shows their current balances. In manual accounting systems, a ledger is usually a loose leaf binder with a separate page for each ledger account. In computerized systems, it consists of interlinked digital files, but follows the same accounting principles as the manual system.

2013

• http://allaccountingcareers.com/accounting-terms
  • QUOTE: General Ledger - Where debit and credit transactions are recorded.

2011

• http://www.leoisaac.com/fin/fin049.htm
  • QUOTE: The General Ledger receives, on a monthly basis, summarised information from the Journals (which are themselves the basic day-to-day record of transactions). This is illustrated in Figure 3 above where you can see information being recorded on a monthly basis.
    At the end of the financial year, the General Ledger then provides a final balance for each account, summarising all the monthly journal postings.
    

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