Master 30 Accounting interview questions covering reconciliations, financial reporting, and audit scenarios.
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Bobbi Witt is an HR Manager and Senior Level Finance and Accounting Consultant. Her experience includes 9 years at a Fortune 500 company where she held a wide range of financial and management accountabilities.
"The general ledger is the central place that stores every accounting entry a company makes. The entries, called journal entries, are debits and credits. The entries are made to various accounts (payroll, inventory, or advertising). These accounts fall into categories such as assets, liabilities, revenue, etc. The sub ledgers would have accounts payable and receivable would be included on the sub-ledger."
A company often has dozens of accounts and tens of thousands of journal entries in the general ledger in a year. Every journal entry should involve a debit and an offsetting credit - this is the basis of the double-entry bookkeeping method.

Bobbi Witt is an HR Manager and Senior Level Finance and Accounting Consultant. Her experience includes 9 years at a Fortune 500 company where she held a wide range of financial and management accountabilities.
"The general ledger is the central place that stores every accounting entry a company makes. The entries, called journal entries, are debits and credits. The entries are made to various accounts (payroll, inventory, or advertising). These accounts fall into categories such as assets, liabilities, revenue, etc. The sub ledgers would have accounts payable and receivable would be included on the sub-ledger."

Bobbi Witt is an HR Manager and Senior Level Finance and Accounting Consultant. Her experience includes 9 years at a Fortune 500 company where she held a wide range of financial and management accountabilities.
"The key difference between general ledger and sub-ledger is that while general ledger is the set of master accounts where transactions are recorded, sub-ledger is an intermediary set of accounts linked to the general ledger. The relationship between these two is that multiple sub-ledgers are attached to the general ledger."
The sub-ledger is also referred to as 'subsidiary ledger', which is a detailed subset of accounts that contains transaction information. This account is referred to as the 'Control account', and account types that generally have a high activity level are recorded here. Subsidiary ledgers can include: purchases, payables, receivables, production cost, payroll, and any other account types.
The general ledger is the principal set of accounts where all transactions conducted within the financial year are recorded. The information for general ledger is derived from the general journal which is an initial book for entering transactions as two sided entries known as the debit and credit: assets, liability, owner's equity, income, and expenses.

Bobbi Witt is an HR Manager and Senior Level Finance and Accounting Consultant. Her experience includes 9 years at a Fortune 500 company where she held a wide range of financial and management accountabilities.
"The key difference between general ledger and sub-ledger is that while general ledger is the set of master accounts where transactions are recorded, sub-ledger is an intermediary set of accounts linked to the general ledger. The relationship between these two is that multiple sub-ledgers are attached to the general ledger."

Bobbi Witt is an HR Manager and Senior Level Finance and Accounting Consultant. Her experience includes 9 years at a Fortune 500 company where she held a wide range of financial and management accountabilities.
Sub-ledger is the subset of General ledger in accounting terms. The relation between sub-ledger to the general ledger is many to one. There can be multiple sub-ledger accounts linked to the same general ledger account. Posting from sub-ledger to general ledger is a process in which entries from the general journal are periodically transferred to ledger accounts (also known as T-accounts).
This is the second step of the accounting cycle because business transactions are first recorded in the sub-ledger, and then they're posted to respective ledger accounts in the general ledger. The type of accounts found on the sub-ledger would be Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Fixed Assets. These are then rolled up in summary form to the general ledger.

Bobbi Witt is an HR Manager and Senior Level Finance and Accounting Consultant. Her experience includes 9 years at a Fortune 500 company where she held a wide range of financial and management accountabilities.
"Fixed assets and accounts receivable would be some of the accounts not listed individually on the general ledger. The General ledger would have an assets or liabilities section."

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Written by Bobbi Witt
30 Questions & Answers • Accounting

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By Bobbi