Subledger vs General Ledger: What’s The Difference? : Planergy Software

A subledger or subsidiary ledger provides the details that make up the balance of specific general ledger accounts. Because general ledger accounts only provide an ending balance for each particular account, a subsidiary ledger is used to provide the details that result in that general ledger balance. Although a business may look to a general ledger for a basic financial overview, the details in the subsidiary ledgers are important when it comes to analyzing all the transactions in a particular category.

• This article looks at meaning of and differences between two types of ledgers – general ledger and subsidiary ledger.
• Don’t forget about auditors, they love sub-ledger accounts to help them track transactions to ensure proper recording of information.
• The general ledger allows us to check account balances at any given moment.
• 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.

Preparation of and posting to ledger accounts is thus an important step in the preparation of financial statements. If financial statements are prepared monthly, the balances of control accounts of the general ledger are ascertained at the end of the month. In the subsidiary ledger, postings are given daily in the individual subsidiary ledger accounts, and balances are ascertained daily. 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.

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Credit purchases are tracked on subsidiary ledgers to forecast financial situations for a company. Credit sales can also represent assets a company possesses on its account receivable. At the end of the accounting period, the subtotal for the accounts-receivable subledger is updated in the general ledger, so that there is an accurate snapshot of the amount of cash owed to the business. This process allows the general ledger to stay streamlined without too many clunky details, but those details recorded still are parts of the business’s accounting history. A subledger contains details of transactions within different categories on a business’s chart of accounts.

Since SL accounts are cost centers, they must be combined with revenue or expense subcodes in order to be referenced in an accounting transaction. In FAMIS, SL accounts must be used to record detailed revenue and expense activity. The full set of revenue and expense subcodes are only available at the SL account level. Other accounting systems may use the term “cost center” or “profit center” to describe the entity at which revenues and expenses are tracked and budgets are managed. A subsidiary ledger’s effectiveness will depend on the person that handles it.

Financial agility and insight

This won’t be an issue if the business only has a handful of customers or suppliers, but if the business has many customers or suppliers, then it will be hard to keep track of each account. This article looks at meaning of and differences between two types What Is The Purpose Of Subsidiary Ledgers? of ledgers – general ledger and subsidiary ledger. Join the 50,000 accounts receivable professionals already getting our insights, best practices, and stories every month. Balances of subsidiary account remain up-to-date as the postings are given daily.

• If your business is very small, and you only have one or two vendors or customers, you can easily track your balances in your general ledger.
• At the end of the accounting period, after the postings have been completed, a list is made of all the individual subsidiary accounts.
• This article examines the differences between general ledgers and subledgers, best practices for using subledgers, and the importance of general ledgers and subledgers in accounting.
• Additionally, it automates the entire journal entry process, so the only month-end entries you’ll need to complete are adjusting entries for interest, depreciation, and amortization.
• By contrast, postings to general ledger accounts need to be made only periodically.
• This ledger is used to correct any discrepancies in the controlling account.

The purpose of keeping subsidiary ledgers is for accuracy and efficiency. Since the total of the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger must agree with the balance shown in the accounts receivable general ledger account, the system helps us find mistakes. Since bookkeeping using ledgers is older than the United States, it was an ingenious way to double-check without having to actually do everything twice.

General ledgers and subledgers have different numbers of accounts

The accounts in the subsidiary ledgers hold more specific information about the accounts that make up the general ledger. However, do not include the specific accounts in this ledger because it would result in tedious work. Subsidiary ledgers provide a separate record of transactions pertaining to individual customers and creditors. But whether you record your subledger accounts automatically or manually, they are a necessity for managing your small business accounting properly, so be sure they’re done right.

If your business is very small, and you only have one or two vendors or customers, you can easily track your balances in your general ledger. But once vendor or customer activity increases, you’ll need a way to track the individual transactions that https://kelleysbookkeeping.com/ make up the balance of those general ledger accounts. There is no need to set up subsidiary ledgers from a control or data access perspective, since you can usually restrict access to individual accounts in better accounting software packages.

What Is a Subledger, and Why Is It Important?

Accountants have been using the sub-ledger to explain parts of the general ledger to their clientele. This article will explain what a general ledger and sub-ledger are and how they are different. We will also discuss how this information can help you grow your business. SAs are five-digit numbers that are added to the SL account in an accounting transaction. At the time FAMIS was developed, the choice of the term “support accounts” was made to distinguish SAs from SL accounts, but it is correct to think SAs and sub-SL accounts. In FAMIS, Subsidiary Ledger (SL) accounts are six-digit numbers used to track revenues, expenses, budgets and encumbrances for a single department and purpose.

• Common master accounts include Cash On Hand, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Income, Expenses, Assets, and Liabilities.
• Each subsidiary ledger is focused on a specific category of financial transactions, such as customer accounts, sales accounts, fixed asset transactions, or bank transactions.
• This will be a lifesaver when applying for loans or enduring an external audit.
• Investors and banks want to know that you have a viable business before providing you with capital.
• If there are multiple subsidiary ledgers, you might have to employ additional people to maintain each of them.
• SAs are five-digit numbers that are added to the SL account in an accounting transaction.

Like other subsidiary ledgers, the accounts receivable subsidiary ledger merely provides details of the control account in the general ledger. Other subsidiary ledgers include the accounts payable subsidiary ledger, inventory subsidiary ledger, and property, plant, and equipment subsidiary ledger. A subsidiary ledger is a group of similar accounts that are put together under a controlling account like the general ledger.

Assign subsidiary ledgers to employees who are well versed in accounting

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. Otherwise, some late transactions may not be posted into the general ledger until the next reporting period. If subsidiary ledgers are inaccurate, then the general ledger might be inaccurate too which will ultimately affect the accuracy of financial statements. For example, a business can assign the duties of maintaining the accounts receivable ledger to one employee, and the maintaining of the accounts payable ledger to another. But even so, some businesses still prepare and maintain subsidiary ledgers which goes to show that the benefits that it provides can outweigh its costs. Maintaining a general journal may be enough to record a business’s transactions but there are some details that these accounting records can’t capture.

The same concept is typically used for each supplier under the accounts payable account. You have probably looked at your general ledger a million times without thinking much about it. It is a journal of all your financial transactions that take place every day. General ledgers use T accounts to show debits and credits to each account that makes up the ledger. If a transaction has been refunded or voided, it is not removed from the ledger but has a reversal entry made.