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Of course, the book known as the General Ledger isn’t alive, so it can’t actually see or speak. But wouldn’t it be nice if it could just tell you all its secrets about what happens with your money? That would certainly make it a lot easier to track down any bookkeeping problems or errors.

Instead, the General Ledger serves as the figurative eyes and ears of bookkeepers and accountants who want to know what financial transactions have taken place historically in a business. By reading the General Ledger – not exactly interesting reading, unless you just love numbers – you can see, account by account, every transaction that has taken place in the business. (And to uncover more details about those transactions, you can turn to your business’s journals, where transactions are kept on a daily basis. See Chapter 5 for the lowdown on journals.)

The General Ledger is the granddaddy of your business. You can find all the transactions that ever occurred in the history of the business in the General Ledger account. It’s the one place you need to go to find transactions that impact Cash, Inventory, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and any other account included in your business’s Chart of Accounts. (See Book I Chapter 2 for more on setting up the Chart of Accounts and the kinds of transactions you can find in each.)