What Is a Subledger?

In order to keep track of how much you owe, every customer must have his or her own account with each business. Otherwise, the company would have one big accounts receivable amount and not know who owes them or how much. Part of the period-end closing process is to post the information in a subsidiary ledger to the general ledger.

However, they are usually only created for areas in which there are high transaction volumes, which limits their use to a few areas. Examples of subsidiary ledgers are the accounts payable ledger, accounts receivable ledger, fixed assets ledger, https://www.kelleysbookkeeping.com/format-of-trial-balance-in-accounting-excel-examples/ inventory ledger, and purchases ledger. By maintaining subsidiary ledgers, companies can easily track and manage transactions for individual accounts, reconcile account balances, and generate reports on specific subsets of their financial data.

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Another use for a subsidiary ledger is keeping track of inventory used to manufacture products. In this case, inventory is the controlling account, and there may be subsidiary accounts for each type of item, such as nuts, bolts, pounds of steel, microchips, etc. Banks are common uses of subsidiary ledgers because of the number of customers they have on credit sales for various products as well as accounts payable for loans banks owe on. In job order costing systems, the job cost sheets (or job cost records) will serve as the subsidiary ledger containing the details for the general ledger account Work in Process. The Work in Process account will now be a control account containing summary amounts for direct materials, direct labor, factory overhead applied, transfers to finished goods, etc. Manufacturing personnel will have full access to the job cost sheets without having access to other information in the general ledger.

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The subsidiary ledger provides a more detailed and organized view of transactions related to a specific account than what is available in the general ledger. The subsidiary ledger in business accounting is a list of detailed accounts that serve as backup for the general ledger. The general ledger is the main list of accounts a business owns that lists all the transactions connected to each account.

Examples of controlling accounts include accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory, equipment, and work in progress. Businesses can keep track of costs for individual jobs through a system of job order costing while also monitoring total costs of work in progress for all current tasks. A subsidiary ledger is a group of similar accounts whose combined balances equal the balance in a specific general ledger account. The general ledger account that summarizes a subsidiary ledger’s account balances is called a control account or master account. For example, an accounts receivable subsidiary ledger (customers’ subsidiary ledger) includes a separate account for each customer who makes credit purchases. The combined balance of every account in this subsidiary ledger equals the balance of accounts receivable in the general ledger.

1. In order to research accounting information when a subsidiary ledger is used, you need to drill down from the general ledger to the appropriate subsidiary ledger, where the detailed information is stored.
2. For example, the general ledger account, Equipment, shows the historical cost of the total equipment owned by the firm.
3. Posting is usually a manual processing step, so you need to verify that all subsidiary ledgers have been appropriately completed and closed before posting their summarized totals to the general ledger.
4. This schedule of accounts receivable—often called an accounts receivable trial balance—is totaled.
5. Postings to the general ledger accounts are likewise indicated by noting the general ledger accounts in the Ref. column.

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Subsidiary ledgers are used by businesses to track inventory like goods yet to be sold, cost of storage, and goods or tools needed to complete products. These ledgers can provide a company insight into customer demographics to get a better feel for the market. Subsidiary ledgers can also be used in a job order costing system which can help increase profits by tracking detailed information in several accounts. Subsidiary ledgers are groups of similar accounts that are put together under a controlling account, which keeps track of the total of all of the subordinate accounts it controls.

A subsidiary ledger is a group of similar accounts that are put together under a controlling account like the general ledger. A general ledger can serve as a controlling account because it lists all the accounts a business has and include a breakdown of every transaction with those accounts for a set time period. A controlling account will backup financial information like accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory, or work in progress accounts. Accounts receivable shows the value of goods that are sold by a business on credit. One way many businesses get more sales is to allow customers to buy on credit. Accounts payable is the money owed by a business to creditors or other organizations.

Companies can have various payables owed to vendors or suppliers at any given time. These payables are short-term debts or IOUs from one company to another company. The total amount of payables owed to suppliers is recorded as accounts payable on the general ledger. The Accounts Receivable subsidiary ledger shows sales on credit by a business. The ledger provides invoice dates and numbers, credit memorandums, payments made against the credit sales, discounts, and returns and allowances.

Subsidiary ledger example 2:

The ledger in financial bookkeeping refers to the organization of financial accounts. Subsidiary ledgers maintain and backup financial data for accounts receivable and controlling accounts. A subsidiary ledger contains the details to support a general ledger control account. For instance, the subsidiary ledger for accounts receivable contains the information for each of the company’s credit sales to customers, each customer’s remittance, return of merchandise, discounts, and so on.

Accounting Principles I

The subsidiary ledger will have a more detailed and focused insight on transactions related to account activity. Similar posting procedures are followed for subsidiary Accounts Payable and any other subsidiary accounts that are maintained. Modern accounting software will automatically create subledgers when necessary. The general ledger account Accounts Receivable and the subsidiary accounts are shown below revenue recognition principle in the form of T-accounts rather than the running balance form, for the sake of convenience. The individual cards serve as a subsidiary ledger to the controlling Equipment account. The Accounts Receivable account summarizes information about the beginning balance, the total of all sales and cash collected on account for the period, and the total owed by all of the firm’s customers at the end of the period.