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June 5, 2006

What is the difference between a general ledger and a general journal?

Journals are referred to as books of original entry. Accounting entries are recorded in a journal in order by date. A company might use special journals (sales, purchases, cash disbursements, cash receipts), or its accounting software will generate entries for routine transactions, but there will always be a general journal in which to record nonroutine transactions, such as depreciation, bad debts, sale of an asset, etc. In the general journal you must enter the account to be debited and the account to be credited and the amounts. Once a transaction is recorded in the general journal, the amounts are then posted to the appropriate accounts.

Accounts (such as Cash, Accounts Receivable, Equipment, Accumulated Depreciation, Accounts Payable, Sales, Telephone Expense, etc.) are contained in the general ledger.

To recap…the general ledger houses the company’s accounts. The general journal is a place to first record an entry before it gets posted to the appropriate accounts.

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About the Author: Harold Averkamp (CPA) has worked as an accountant, consultant, and university accounting instructor for more than 25 years.

He is the author of the 2010 Master Accounting Download Package which has been praised for it's ability to simplify accounting in a way that anybody can understand.



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Comments

13 Responses to “What is the difference between a general ledger and a general journal?”

  1. Madhu babu on September 3rd, 2007 11:22 pm

    what is the difference between journal accounts and ledger accounts?

  2. Krishna on June 23rd, 2008 2:03 pm

    Do you Provide Basic Fundamentals Like Flow charts? I think this is very easy to learn.

  3. claire on September 15th, 2008 10:16 pm

    what is the definition of ledger? need help here lolz

  4. jelly ann on September 26th, 2008 4:43 am

    give me example of special journals

  5. Muhammad Zain on March 13th, 2009 6:29 pm

    Sir plz give me the all defination of ledger and method that how to make a ledger from journals?

  6. Abas Ali on March 17th, 2009 6:01 am

    General ledger is a record of all the accounts which shows the the effect of a transaction while general journals are used to record the transactions where it can’t be recorded in other special ledgers.

  7. victor on June 18th, 2009 1:58 pm

    will credit transaction be recorded in the ledger. is the general ledger for both credit and cash transaction

  8. chinn on July 7th, 2009 7:05 am

    sir.palce give full of accountancy formulas & chats

  9. diamond on September 18th, 2009 2:03 pm

    if I had to journalize the following what would it look like:

    Dec 1 Issued 20,000 shares of stock in exchange for a total of $200,000 cash

  10. Jenny on December 7th, 2009 11:54 pm

    What is the tax treatment of deposit bonds when purchasing a renal property off the plan over 12 months prior to any rental income.

  11. maria on December 26th, 2009 1:01 pm

    plz explain me clearly about use of vouchers in accounting,How many types of vouchers are there?

  12. waseem on January 4th, 2010 2:24 am

    sir plz provide us an example of journal ledger

  13. Mohammed Ali on February 17th, 2010 4:56 pm

    Sir,

    Can you pls explaing me the concept of debit notes and credit notes and Also tell me whether balance sheet is prepare base on which accounting concept.whether Personal A/c,Real A/c or Nominal A/c

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