12 BULLETIN 811, U., S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTUEE. 



The General Ledger and Accovbnts Receivable Ledger. — Every trans- 

 action is entered in the Journal. By means of special columns in this 

 book certain items of frequent recurrence are segregated at the time the 

 original entries are made. The Journal, however, does not provide 

 a complete segregation, since its chief function is to serve as a chrono- 

 logical record of transactions. It is therefore necessary to transcribe 

 or ''post" the Journal entries to the Ledger, where they are classified 

 completely, all items of a similar nature being assembled in an ac- 

 count. The Ledger is divided for convenience into two sections, 

 which are designated as the General Ledger and the Accounts Re- 

 ceivable Ledger. The latter contains only local personal accounts. 



In posting from the Journal, only those items that appear in the 

 General ledger and the Accounts receivable columns of the Cash 

 Journal, and in the Net proceeds column of the Record of Shipments 

 and Sales are posted in detail. 



The monthly footings of all columns excepting those captioned 

 General ledger in the Cash Journal, and Net proceeds in the Record 

 of Grain Shipments and Sales are posted to the proper accounts in 

 the General Ledger. The number of postings is thus greatly re- 

 duced. 



CLASSIFICATION OF GENERAL LEDGER ACCOUNTS. 



The following General Ledger accounts, with few exceptions, are 

 believed to be adequate for any country elevator. It is obvious 

 that all of the merchandise purchases and sales accounts v/ill not be 

 needed by every elevator, while on the other hand additional mer- 

 chandise accounts will be needed by others. The operation of aU 

 accounts is shown in detail. 



The accounts hereafter described are so arranged that a monthly 

 Income and Expense statement can be constructed with little work and 

 without the necessity of closing the books. 



In opening the ledger accounts the sequence in which the accounts 

 are given below should be adhered to, as this sequence will facilitate 

 the making of income and expense statements and the posting. 



The scheme of numbering the accounts used herein is recommended, 

 as it allows the insertion of additional accounts without breaking the 

 sequence. 



In the discussions of ledger accounts which follow, the term 

 "fiscal period" means the financial or other operating period as dis- 

 tinguished from the calendar periods. The term " at time of opening 

 the books" means the time of installing a new system of accounts. 



