VPRS 14633 General Ledgers

Ledgers comprise one or more accounts, each account being a statement of all transactions relating to a particular item about which the recording of changes (debit and credit transactions) is required. Transactions are posted to the ledger accounts from the cash books and journals. The source of the information is subsequently indicated by reference to folio numbers often accompanied by an abbreviation of the source record eg. C or CB for Cash Book, J for Journal, PC for Petty Cash Book etc. The classification of accounts is diverse and usually depends on the operations of the agency and the nature of the information required as part of the financial statements of the agency.Subsidiary ledgers are often maintained either to facilitate a division of responsibilities within a large account, or to provide a separate record of a particular account.The general ledger, however, comprises all accounts necessary for the compilation of the finance statements required by the agency. It is common for a general ledger to comprise a single account to represent the total of the individual accounts in each of the subsidiary ledgers. This device is called a control account.