General Ledger

[Dale Alspach]

The reference I have distinguishes journal from ledger based on entry
time and purpose. A journal is a historical record of first entry of
complete transactions (splits, notes, etc.). A ledger is a final or
secondary record of changes to an account.

The term general journal seems to have two uses. In a small business
every transaction would be entered in time order in the general journal.
In a larger enterprise there may be many special journals (sales,
purchases, etc.) and the general journal would be for entries not in a
special journal.

As Michael Novak pointed out these notions originate in paper accounting
and for small business and personal accounting may not have much use.
With an electronic system such as gnucash and only one book the system
is ledger oriented. One can see the journal entries affecting one
account by selecting Transaction Journal under View. The General Ledger
under Tools shows what is like a journal except that some history is
lost because the entries may be changed without the use of a correcting
journal entry. With that in mind and the distinction noted above, this
seems to be a general ledger rather than a general journal unless one
uses strict accounting practice (once a transaction is entered it is
forever; the effect is changed by a new correcting transaction.) Some
transaction oriented systems have an audit trail which is equivalent to
a general journal.

Dale

On 02/26/2018 09:08 AM, Leo Bolta wrote:
> I never majored in accounting but I can still remember "General Journal"
> being a standard term often used in Canadian high school accounting about 50
> years ago.  Recently I picked up an Ontario, Canada bookkeeping text book
> from 1882.  It makes a distinction between what are called "Day Books,
> Journals and Ledgers".  I'll try to photograph some relative pages in the
> next few days and attach them in a post.
> Leo    
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnucash-user
> [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+lbolta=rogers.com at gnucash.org] On Behalf Of
> Buddha Buck
> Sent: February-26-18 7:34 AM
> To: elvis
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: General Ledger
> 
> It's not an Australian accounting thing, unless I managed to grab Australian
> book out of my small-city upstate New York library system some 30 years
> ago...
> 
> 
> On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 5:38 AM elvis <elvis at dogonfire.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 25/02/18 07:54, Dave H wrote:
>>> Well from my point of view that is confusing.  Nobody in my world 
>>> refers
>> to
>>> a "General Journal" we refer to the "General Ledger" and we do 
>>> journals
>>> :-)  I've never actually heard the term general journal used 
>>> anywhere before until this discussion over the weekend !!!
>>
>> You weren't in my accounting class where we got the use of the general 
>> journal beaten into us :-) I can still remember it 30 years later. 
>> Maybe it's an Australian accounting thing.
>>> Cheers Dave H.
>>>
>>> On 24 February 2018 at 19:58, Geert Janssens 
>>> <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be
>>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> gnucash-user mailing list
>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see 
>> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
>> -----
>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>