QuickBooks General Ledger: How to Prepare & Print in QuickBooks

QuickBooks General Ledger helps you to maintain any general ledger transactions very easily. QuickBooks help you to instantly sync everything on your tablet, phone, and computer allowing so that you can effortlessly operate your business from anywhere. QuickBooks can also help you to maintain your company’s financial costs, sum expenses, calculate income, and keep data up to current anytime, everywhere.

Based on the dual aspect of accounting, you must record a variety of business transactions in your books of accounts. As a result, while documenting a transaction into books, the Duality Principle requires that at least two accounts are involved. This implies that one account grows while the other decreases.

As a result, the give and take involved in every transaction is indicated by the accounts that are Debited or Credited. Therefore, a system of debit and credit like this one helps in finding out each item’s final position at the end of the given accounting period.

Every one of your transactions now goes through a process before being recorded in the final books of accounts. The Original Book of Entry, sometimes referred to as the Journal, is where the transactions are first entered. These transactions are then posted to specific accounts included in General Ledger after the Journal is completed.

The Trial Balance Sheet is then updated with the balance of each General Ledger Account. The account balance is finally entered in the income statement and balance sheet once the Trial Balance is completed.

Today in this blog we are going to provide you with a complete guide about what a QuickBooks General Ledger is and how to generate, locate, and print a general ledger in QuickBooks Desktop.

Read the post to receive answers to all of your questions.

What is General Ledger?

A QuickBooks General Ledger includes a Credit and Debit account for each transaction. It is a detailed report that includes all transactions posted to each account. QuickBooks accounting software manages your company’s financial data as well as other activities that formerly needed the services of a full-time accountant.

A record with individual accounts and the transactions related to each of those accounts is referred to as a general ledger. It is a set of accounts that provides information on detailed transactions with respect to each of those accounts. For example, throughout the year you purchase raw materials from your vendor William paper Mill. All purchases made from William Paper Mill in cash or on credit would therefore be recorded under William Paper Mill’s account.

Therefore, a general ledger helps you in understanding the outcome of all transactions regarding particular accounts on a given date. General Ledger is sometimes referred to as the Principal Book of Accounting System because of this.

In order to find out how much your customer owes you on a particular date, you must consult his account in your general ledger. The Creditor’s Account in your General Leger must also be consulted if you want to discover how much you owe a certain creditor on a specific date.

Simplified Meaning of General Ledger

The principal book that contains all the accounts for your accounts is called the general ledger. It is one of the important accounting records for your company. Additionally, the Journal and Ledger both get all accounting entries.

This means you first enter a business transaction in your Journal. Keep in mind that you must write down each one in your journal in the exact sequence that it occurs. You must classify and transfer the transaction into a specified General Ledger account after you have entered it in the Journal.

As a result, General Ledger has separate accounts where similar transactions are recorded. These transactions involve an expense, an individual, a liability, or an asset.

What is the General Ledger QuickBooks Report?

The General Ledger Quickbooks Report is a comprehensive summary of all financial activities within your business or enterprise, covering different accounts for a specific period. It offers a detailed breakdown of all transactions, including incoming and outgoing funds, as well as account summaries. The report is organized by account type and not just by date, giving you a better understanding of your financial status. If you need further clarification on the General Ledger Quickbooks Report, you can access a detailed explanation here.

To access and customize the General Ledger QuickBooks Report within the QuickBooks Accounting Software, follow these steps.

The Fundamentals of QuickBooks General Ledger

In the general ledger “the Books,” record a summary of the monthly activities. A master record of the business’s operations. QuickBooks uses a double-entry approach to keep track of our recorded entries. The company’s finances would balance if you entered everything correctly. In short for instance, if the balances in each account were totaled together, the total would be zero.

QuickBooks keeps distinct records for each activity when we keep records by hand. The three primary journals are as follows:

• Payroll is the accounting system that keeps track of each employee’s wages, as well as the checks that are made to pay them and the associated payroll taxes.
• Accounts Payable daily record of the company’s purchases and bills that have yet to be paid.
• Accounts Receivable daily record of the company’s sales and revenues, as well as unpaid bills from clients.

Classification of General Ledgers

There are three different types of Ledgers that you can prepare. These include:

Sales Ledgers or Debtors Ledgers

One of the three types of ledgers that you create as a company or business organization is the sales ledger or debtors ledger. It keeps records of every transaction you have with your debtors. Debtors in this context are simply the business entities to whom you have sold your manufactured goods.

It includes a collection of accounts associated with your customers. Additionally, it displays the amount you still owe your customers or the amount you have yet to receive from them.

Additionally, it keeps track of sales returns. The things that your consumers return are referred to here as sales returns. As a result, your Sales Ledger keeps track of detailed information about the things you sold to your customers. Below are the details that are recorded in your sales ledger.

• Type of goods sold
• Date of Sale
• Amount of goods
• Tax Details
• Name of the customers, etc.

Additionally, you can look back to the details with regards to the sales completed if you need to in the future. Similarly, the Sales Ledger helps in keeping track of payments from customers that have been received and those that are still pending.

Purchases Ledger or Creditors Ledger

All transactions related to purchases that your business entity makes are recorded by a Ledger that is known as Purchases Ledger. All the transactions that take place between you and your suppliers are recorded by Purchase Ledger.

Therefore, the amount you pay to your suppliers or the amount yet to be paid for the purchases completed is displayed in a Purchase Ledger or a Creditors Ledger. A purchase ledger can thus help you keep track of the transactions your company makes. By doing this, you may make sure that you have enough purchases to ensure the smooth manufacturing of the product. Also, the purchase ledger helps you in knowing both the outstanding amount and the amount paid to creditors. In addition to this, you may always refer back to the purchase details if necessary.

Purchase ledger also helps you to know the following.

• Lists of suppliers
• Type and quantity of goods that you have purchased
• Purchases that involve huge sums of money

General Ledger

Any ledger account other than the sales and purchase accounts is included in a general ledger. As a result, you must prepare various sub-ledgers containing the necessary details in order to prepare a single ledger known as General Ledger.

Therefore, General Ledger contains information related to many accounts. You can use the data from these accounts to help you create financial statements for your business. The income statement and balance sheet are part of these financial statements.

The information that is recorded in General Ledger is divided based on the type of accounts. General Ledger Accounts include the following that is mentioned below:

• Liabilities
• Assets
• Owner’s Equity
• Expenses or Losses
• Revenues and Gains

Benefits of General Ledger

One of the important records in the accounting system is the general ledger. After you have completed journal entries in the Books of Original Entry, it is prepared (Journal). As it is already mentioned above, various transactions are recorded in Ledger under various account categories. These include accounts of sales, purchases accounts, inventories accounts, etc.

You can track various transactions related to particular account heads with the use of such a record. Additionally, it helps in speeding up the process of preparing books of accounts. Hence, general ledger accounting benefits your company in a number of ways.

Preparation of Financial Statements

Without General Ledger, it is impossible to create Financial Statements like Trading, P&L, and balance sheets. This is so that you can prepare the trial balance with the help of the General Ledger’s detailed accounts. The Trial Balance also guarantees the accuracy of the data in your Ledger Accounts. As a result, you can further use the financial statements using the accurate amounts displayed in your trial balance. The income statement and balance sheet are two of these statements. Therefore, if you do not prepare General Ledger, it becomes difficult to prepare such financial statements. As a result, as a business owner, you are unable to assess the liquidity, profitability, and overall financial position of your organization.

Final Position of Specific Accounts

Under separate account heads in your company’s General Ledger, you record the financial transactions. Moreover, at the end of the accounting period, you close these Ledger Accounts. By balancing the debit and credit sides of such accounts, you do this.

As a result, you are able to understand where your business is in terms of debtors, creditors, expenses, revenues, etc. For example, consider the outstanding payment against suppliers or the money that must be collected from customers.

Easy Audit

You have the option of conducting an internal audit or hiring an accountant to examine your financial statements. As a result, the general ledger acts as a financial record that is always audited. This is so that transactions can be recorded in General Ledger Accounts under various accounts heads. Additionally, it offers thorough details on such accounts.

This is because using the given information, you can easily verify if various accounting items are accurately classified and recorded. General Ledger Accounting also helps you to spot material misstatements with regard to various accounts. Moreover, the accounting professional checking your company accounts may ask for sales receipts, purchase invoices, etc. They may conduct this to make sure that the proper amounts are being charged. As a result, everything is made simple when proper ledger accounts are created.

Easy Tax Filing

You can use general ledger accounts to record the details of the transactions your company does over the course of an accounting period. For example, your sales ledger includes information about tax information, the invoice number, the items sold, the date of the sale, customer details, etc.

The revenue and expense accounts provide an accurate view of the earnings or expenses incurred. Since you do not need to search for invoices or bank statements while submitting tax returns, these details are helpful. This is due to the fact that the details recorded in your ledger accounts give you sufficient details to prepare your tax returns.

Identification of Unusual Transaction

Several transactions take place during an accounting period. Therefore, if you do not categorize the transactions in General Ledger, it becomes difficult for you to locate unwanted transactions.

For you as a business entity, this could become a cause of concern. For example, you were overcharged for an item you purchased. Now, if the Ledger Accounts are not prepared, it is difficult for you to identify this transaction. This is due to the fact that an accounting period is filled with the number of transactions.

Assessment of the Company’s Financial Health

You prepare Trial Balance based on General Ledger Accounts. You can create statements of final accounts using Trial Balance. The balance sheet and income statement fall within this category. These financial statements assist you in understanding your company’s profitability and overall financial status.

In other words, you are able to see clearly how profitable your company is and what resources it has to meet outsiders claims.

What are the Types of General Ledger Accounts?

General Ledger Accounts are divided into five categories. Below are the mentioned types-

1. Asset Accounts

Resources that your business entity has made up its assets. These resources are capable of generating cash flows. Assets are therefore things with economic value that may be converted for cash or cash equivalents.

Additionally, current assets and fixed assets are categories of the assets. On your company’s balance sheet, these are normally listed on the left-hand side.

This asset account includes the following list of items that are mentioned below:

Cash	Debtors	Accounts Receivable (AR)
Inventory	Land and Structure	Machinery and Plant

2. Liabilities Account

The amounts you owe to individuals or outsiders are your liabilities. These are the financial obligations that you have to carry out. Also, these are the obligations you have to carry out in relation to the borrowed funds that haven’t yet been paid for. Liabilities may also be represented on the balance sheet’s right side. As a result, liabilities can also be divided into current and non-current categories. Here are some examples of liabilities.

Creditors	Accounts Receivable
Exceptional Expenses	Long-Term Credit

3. Shareholders Equity

The excess of your company’s assets over its liabilities is referred to as the stockholders’ equity. In other words, these are the assets that are still present after all liabilities and debts have been settled.

Therefore, the capital that your shareholders put in your business in return for the company’s stock and retained earnings is what is referred to as stockholder’s equity.

Additionally, share capital retained earnings, and treasury stock are included in the shareholder’s equity. As a result, shareholder equity follows current and non-current obligations on the liability side of your company’s balance sheet.

Common Stalk

Treasury

Retained Earnings

4. Operating Income Accounts

Operating Income is the money you make from your core business operations. With the help of operating income, it helps you to know your capacity to generate profits from your primary business activity.

Sales revenue, money from fees and commissions, and other types of income are all included in operating income. These incomes vary depending on the kind of business you run.

Fees

Sales

5. Operating Expense Accounts

To run the day-to-day operations of your business operating Expenses are the expenses that you must mandatorily incur. Therefore, they are the expenses that are necessary for you to run your main business operations. Rent, payroll, insurance, and other expenses are a few examples of operating expenses.

Rent

Salaries

6. Non-Operating or Other Income Accounts

The non-operating incomes and expenses, in contrast to operating expenses, are one-time incomes or costs that you earn or incur. Both are not results of your core business activity. These costs are also unrelated to your business operations.

Examples of non-operating incomes and expenses are mentioned below:

Gain on Asset Sale	Income from Dividends
Assets Sold at a Loss	Interest Earnings
Interest Charge

What is the Purpose of QuickBooks General Ledger?

A general ledger helps you to keep a track of all of a business’s transactions. Transactional data is categorized into assets, liabilities, income, costs, and owner’s equity in a general ledger. Once each sub-ledger has been closed out, the accountant prepares the trial balance. QuickBooks General Ledger assists you in keeping track of:

Tracking of Company Activities: The general ledger is a wonderful tool to keep track of numerous company transactions, such as placing personal deposits into your business bank account or paying business bills with personal monies. Separating company and personal spending is frequently challenging; nevertheless, the general leader may assist.

Track Your Business Financial Expenditures: It’s quite difficult to track the financial expenses on time so it helps you to do it conveniently. General Ledger helps you to track the expenses at ease and help you to stay on the top by making proper entries. You can observe, for example, that the proper entries are made for the correct accounts, such as car payments that are not assigned to the Auto Expense account and are instead placed in their respective accounts.

Ensure Your Books are Up to Date: General Ledger is a useful tool and a simple way to track your spending for a more organized firm. QuickBooks General Ledger lets you track out data input errors and figure out why your numbers aren’t adding up. You may double-check the General Ledger report to ensure that everything is in order.

How Does QuickBooks General Ledger Report Work?

QuickBooks accounting balance is maintained using the double-entry approach. To enable its features for users, QuickBooks general ledger follows a certain procedure. The financial statements are prepared using the double-entry accounting technique. To function, it requires debits, credit cards, and monetary amounts.

It contains some requirements for how the cards work and how much they cost, such as;

• Credits and debits must have the same dollar amount.
• Each journal entry must contain at least one debit and credit entry.
• Each account should not have an equal number of debits and credits.

To maintain it in balance, QuickBooks uses the balance sheet formula. The assets of a firm are calculated by summing liabilities and owner’s equity.

Method to calculate the Assets:

Assets are calculated by adding Liabilities and Owner’s Equity (Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity)

General Ledger Reports in QuickBooks

In QuickBooks Online, a General Ledger report displays a list of transactions from all accounts for a given month. When running this report, you may choose between a cash or accrual basis, and you can also filter it by choosing only the accounts you wish to see. The first summary report displays totals for each account, as well as any transaction reports or exceptions. This report is accessible in all QuickBooks Online editions. Asset accounts such as Cash, Accounts Receivable, Equity, and Undeposited Funds are examples of these accounts.

How can You Find the General Ledger Report in QuickBooks Online?

If you’re unsure where to look for the General Ledger Report, then follow the steps mentioned below:

• First, open your QuickBooks.
• Click on the Reports menu from the left menu panel.
• After selecting reports, select the option All.
• Now Select For My Accountant from the drop-down menu at the bottom of your screen.
• Once my accountant is open, choose General Ledger.
• Then choose a date range and then either a cash or accrual basis.
• Finally to make the report, select Run Report.

How do You Make a Journal Entry in QuickBooks?

Follow these steps to produce a general QuickBooks journal entry:

• Firstly, from the QuickBooks Company menu, select Make General Journal Entries.
• Change the Date field in the Make General Journal Entries window after that.
• Then, in the Entry No. area, type any number of journal entries.
• After that, fill in the details for the General Journal Entry.
• Pick your first account’s transactions (If you utilize accounts receivable or accounts payable accounts, make sure it’s the first account in the General Journal transaction entries).
• Now in the Debit or Credit columns enter the debit or credit amount for the account you’ve chosen.
• Then write a memo describing the transaction. This will appear on reports that include this journal entry.
• Choose the name of the transaction’s Customer, Vendor/Supplier, Employee, or Other.
• You must take the amount chargeable to the client if you pick an Expense account with a customer.
• Then give the class the amount.
• To enter distribution lines, repeat steps 1 to 5 until the transaction amount reaches zero.
• Ascertain that the total in the Debit column is equal to the total in the Credit column.
• Save and Close the diary entry and close the window; Save and New save the journal entry and open a new window.
• After you’ve prepared the journal entry, you may go into QuickBooks and see and amend the journal entry.

How to Print General Ledger in QuickBooks?

To print a General Ledger in QuickBooks follows these steps:

• First of all, open your QuickBooks.
• Then go to Print Reports, then Transaction Reports, and finally to General Ledger from the drop-down menu.
• Then, select a month and year.
• Now to print the whole General Ledger, leave the account range fields blank.
• Enter the beginning and ending account numbers if you wish to print for an account range.
• Remember that entering the account limit almost always results in a balance error, since debits frequently do not match credit transactions for a given limit.
• Remember that this report isn’t time-sensitive.
• This indicates that the report will include any transaction made within a specific month (even if the transaction date is for a different month).
• This is quite helpful for accountants who need to record quarterly balances in a specific circumstance.
• Go ahead and select Print and then Start Printing now.
• Finally, you may also print to the printer or preview the screen.

How to Find General Ledger in QuickBooks Desktop?

To locate the general ledger in Quickbooks Desktop, follow the instructions below:

• Go to the QuickBooks Desktop application.
• Select Reports from the left navigation panel.
• Then, from the drop-down option, select All.
• Now scroll down to the For My Accountant section and click it.
• Then Claim on your General Ledger.
• Choose a date range and then decide whether to use a cash or accrual basis.
• Finally, to produce the report, click Run Report.

How to View General Ledger in QuickBooks Desktop?

You must run the general ledger report in QuickBooks Desktop to view the general ledger. The Reports menu allows you to do this. To access only the details you want in the report, you simply need to edit the report. In QuickBooks Desktop, here is how to view the general ledger:

• First, You have to go to the Reports option.
• After that, Highlight the Accountant and Taxes option.
• Then you have to click the option of General Ledger.
• Select the option of Customize Report and then switch to the Display tab.
• After that, Click on the Advanced option and then select the In Ise option from the Include field.
• Lastly, press the OK button twice.

How to Get General Ledger in QuickBooks Online?

Any QuickBooks version can use the General Ledger report. You only need to run the report in order to view the general ledger. You may see the details for a selected time period by selecting the date range. To get a general ledger in QuickBooks Online, follow these steps:

• On the left, Click the Reports tab. In QuickBooks Online, A list of reports is available.
• Choose the Standard tab next.
• Go to the For My Accountant field now by scrolling down.
• Press General Ledger twice. This will display all of the information.
• Select the preferred Date range on the General Ledger Report screen. Use the Report Period drop-down menu for this.
• If you want to filter or sort the data displayed on the report, click Customize.
• You have the option of choosing a Cash basis or Accrual.
• Press the Run Report button after that. The report will then be generated.

The General Ledger report will only show the active transactions as you complete these steps. You can view the chosen details in QuickBooks Desktop in this manner.

General Ledger Codes are simply the numerical codes assigned to various General Ledger Accounts. These accounts assist you in correctly structuring General Ledger and quickly recording transactions.

We hope now you have a complete guide on QuickBooks General Ledger: How to Prepare and Print in QuickBooks and many more things related to QuickBooks General Ledger. And hopefully, all the above-mentioned steps will help you to fix any of your issues efficiently. However, if you have any queries, you can freely reach out to us. Our customer support will provide you with the best assistance possible.

---

Frequently Asked Questions (Faqs)