Free General Ledger Templates

A general ledger template is a record of the income and expenses that affect your company’s bottom line. A general ledger template can help you record and monitor your financial data to ensure your debits and credits reflect your budget. 

Using a general ledger template provides insight into your business’s financial health by helping you track debit and credit transactions and compare assets and liabilities. A general ledger is the centralized document for all details relating to your company’s financial status, including liabilities, assets, owner’s equity, expenses, and revenue. To balance your general ledger, your credits and debits must be equal. 

The general ledger includes data from subledgers, such as accounts receivable, accounts payable, fixed assets, cash management, and purchasing, to help you determine whether your company’s assets are sufficient to meet operating costs, or if you need to increase revenue to cover expenses. 

To ensure that your company accounts for all of your debits and expenditures, a general ledger template should include the following details: 

• Account Name: The name of the account for the line-item credit or debit figure. 
• Account Number: The unique account number for the line-item credit or debit figure. 
• Balance: The total credits minus the total debits. 
• Credit: The increase in liability, equity, and revenue or the decrease in expenses, assets, or dividends for each transaction line item, also called a CR.
• Debit: The increase in assets or the decrease in liabilities for each transaction line item, also called a DR.
• Item Date: The date the line-item debit or credit figure was entered into the general ledger.  
• Item Details: A description of the line-item debit or credit figure. 
• Post Reference: The location or subledger name where each transaction was recorded, sometimes called a PR or journal reference.
• Report Date: The date the general ledger was created or updated.