The General Ledger lists every debit and credit posted to your accounts in a period, grouped account by account and in date order inside each account. It is where you go to see exactly what makes up an account's figure: which invoices, bills, payments and journal entries moved it, what was on the other side of each one, and what the balance was after every line.
Opening it
- Reports ▸ Accountant & Taxes ▸ General Ledger.
- Ctrl+G from anywhere in SeroBooks, or search "general ledger" in Go To / Look Up (Ctrl+K).
- The Report Centre also has a General Ledger report in Accountant & Taxes (see The Report Centre version).
Reading one account, step by step
- Open the General Ledger. It starts on this month so far.
- Click Period and choose the dates: This month, Last month, This quarter, Last quarter, Year to date, Last year, a month, or Exact dates. Click Apply.
- Click All accounts and choose the account in Which account?. The ledger now shows only that account, and the button shows its name.
- Read down the account: its beginning balance, each line with its running balance, and the total at the bottom.
- To see the whole ledger again, click the account button and clear the choice.
The top of the screen
- The title shows the dates, followed by a plain name when the dates match one exactly: this month, last month, this year or last year.
- Period chooses the dates. All accounts limits the ledger to one account. Refresh reads it again.
- The line under the title reminds you that the figures are read straight from the ledger and nothing on the screen changes them.
- A warning banner may appear above everything when some documents have not reached the ledger, for example 3 document(s) not posted. Until that is fixed, the ledger is short by those documents.
- If a refresh fails, an amber note says the figures are from an earlier read. Check the connection and refresh before relying on them.
The balance check
Across the whole ledger, debits always equal credits. The green banner Balanced — debits equal credits at $X confirms it for the period. If it ever reads OUT OF BALANCE by $X, something is wrong in the books; see Common problems.
When you limit the ledger to one account, no check is made, because a single account is not supposed to balance. The banner instead states the account's movement for the period, for example Bank Chequing on its own — debits and credits are not expected to match inside one account. $12,400.00 in, $9,850.00 out, a net $2,550.00 debit this period.
How the ledger is laid out
Each account starts with a heading row across the full width:
- Balance sheet accounts (assets, liabilities, equity) show a Beginning balance: the account's balance at the start of the period, carried in from everything before it.
- Income and expense accounts start the period at zero, so their lines add up to the period's activity only.
Then come the account's lines, oldest first, and a Total for [account] row with the account's debits and credits for the period and its closing balance.
Accounts are listed by type and then by name. An account with nothing posted in the period does not appear.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Date | The date the line was posted. |
| Type | The kind of document that posted the line. A line with no document behind it, such as a General Journal Entry, shows Journal. |
| Num | The document's number, or the journal's Entry No. |
| Name | The customer or vendor on the document. |
| Memo | The line's memo or note. |
| Split | The account on the other side of the entry. When the other side is several accounts, it reads -Split-. |
| Debit / Credit | The line's amount, on its side. |
| Balance | The account's running balance after this line, in the account's natural direction: debits raise assets and expenses; credits raise liabilities, equity and income. |
The ledger's order is the report, so the columns cannot be sorted.
Double-click a line posted by an invoice or credit memo to open that document. Other lines do not open from here.
The footer and large periods
The footer reads Double-click a line to open the document behind it and shows Period total debits and credits. These are always the totals for the whole period and the chosen account, however many lines are on screen.
A long period can hold tens of thousands of lines. The ledger loads the first 2,000; when there are more, the footer shows Show 1,000 more and how many lines are loaded (2,000 of 8,412 lines). Each click adds another 1,000 to the same continuous ledger. The last account on screen may be cut part way, so its total row covers only the lines loaded. For a complete picture, limit the ledger to one account or shorten the period, which is also what an export marked PARTIAL suggests.
Searching the ledger
Type in the table's search box to find lines anywhere in the books. The search:
- Looks through all history, not just the period on screen.
- Matches the document number or reference, the customer's or vendor's name or company name, the memo, and the account name.
- Keeps the account limit, if you set one.
- Shows up to 500 matches, newest first.
The screen changes shape to show that these are search results, not a ledger. A banner reads Searching ALL history for "hydro" — 37 match(es). The period above does not apply to a search, and a running balance cannot be shown for scattered lines. Clear the search to go back to the ledger. The columns become Date, Account, Type, Num, Name, Memo, Split, Debit and Credit, and the footer total is labelled These matches. When nothing matches, the banner says Nothing anywhere in the books matches "…".
Clear the search box to return to the ledger for the period.
Exporting and printing
The table's export saves the ledger as it stands, titled General Ledger with the dates underneath. See Print, export and email a report.
The Report Centre version
The Report Centre has a General Ledger report too (Accountant & Taxes, Every account, every posting, with running balance.). It covers a date range and shows, for each account with activity, an Opening balance row, the lines with Date, Type, Num, Name, Memo, Debit, Credit and Balance, and a Total row. Its lines drill down to what posted them. It prints, exports and can be memorized like any report; see Running a report and Drilling down.
Permissions
The General Ledger reads the books and changes nothing. Anyone whose role can open the Accounting screens can view it.
Tips
- Limiting the ledger to one account is the quickest way to answer "what makes up this figure?". Use it before scrolling.
- To find one document when you do not know its date, type its number in the search box: the search ignores the period.
- To see every line of one journal entry together, use Reports ▸ Accountant & Taxes ▸ Journal instead; see Make General Journal Entries.
- For a single account's lines with opening, movement and closing totals, double-click the account in the Trial Balance.
Common problems
The banner says OUT OF BALANCE. Double entry means the whole ledger always balances, so a difference points to a damaged entry. Open Reports ▸ Accountant & Taxes ▸ Journal for the same period: entries that do not balance are flagged there with a warning icon. Open each one and correct it.
An account I expected is missing. Nothing was posted to it in the period. Widen the period, or check the account in the Chart of Accounts.
The last account's total looks too small. The period holds more lines than are loaded. Click Show 1,000 more, or limit the ledger to that account.
My search finds lines outside the period. That is by design: a search covers all history. Clear the search to return to the period.
Double-clicking a line does nothing. Only invoice and credit memo lines open from here. For other lines, note the Num and use Transaction History and Transaction Journal or find the document in its own list.