bookkeeping cycle: Posting to the General Ledger

Account No.

Posting Journal Entries to the General Ledger

The purpose of posting to a ledger is to apply the deposits and charges to the specific account in which they belong. A ledger is a compilation of accounts.

The process of posting takes an entry from a journal and transfers it to the specific accounts in the ledger.

A ledger account must be opened. This means that the account name and number must be written on the top of a ledger form. Once an account is opened, entries need to be made into it so that the balance for that specific account can be found at any time.

There are seven columns in a ledger. These columns include:

date
item
posting reference
transaction debit
transaction credit
balance debit
balance credit

The item column is only used for special entries. Special entries would include an opening balance (for cash/owner's equity), writing off an uncollectible account, adjustments, etc.

Below is a sample of an account ledger.

Posting from the journal to the ledger involves the following steps:

1. Enter the date of the journal entry in the date column of the ledger.

2. In the posting reference column, write a "G" for general journal, followed by the page number of the journal that the entry came from. Ex: page 1 of the general journal would be abbreviated as G1.

3. Enter the amount of the debit or credit in the respective column.

4. Calculate the new balance. Keep in mind what the normal balance is for the account (from Unit 5). If the account has a normal debit balance and the entry is for a debit, you would add the two together to get the new debit balance. If the account has a normal debit balance and the entry is for a credit, you would subtract the amount of the entry from the prior balance to get your new debit balance. The same concept applies to accounts with normal credit balances.

5. Once you have filled in all of the information in the ledger, you need to take the account number of the account that you are working on and write it in the posting reference column on the journal on the line of the entry that you have just completed posting.

If the account should have a zero balance after an entry is made, indicate so by drawing a single line through the normal balance column.

Reference:
http://www.educ.uidaho.edu/bustech/accounting/Introductory/acctng_posting_ledger.htm

Here is an example of Posting. Watch this VIDEO TUTORIAL. .