General ledger
In accounting, general ledger means the complete set of accounts, holding every posted entry.
- Layer
- Lexicon
- Defined in
- Lexicon
- Also called
- GL
- Components
- 6
Not a rule
Bookkeeping convention — not codified. US GAAP governs recognition, measurement and presentation — not the mechanics a bookkeeper uses to get there. Anyone citing a standard for this word is citing the wrong thing.
Every citation in this system, with the text we read and the date we checked it, is in US GAAP and where these rules come from.
The lessons that teach this
Accounting, 0 to 1 — a free course taught end to end on one month of one company, with the spreadsheet exercises to work it yourself.
- 01Why the books existBookkeeping is not record-keeping for its own sake. It is a system built so that an error announces itself and every figure traces back to an event.7 min
- 06Posting to the ledgerThe journal is in date order; the ledger is in account order. Posting is the re-sort, and it is what turns a list of events into a balance you can report.8 min
- 07The trial balanceEvery account, netted onto one side, with both columns summed. It proves the arithmetic, and you need to know exactly how much it does not prove.10 min
General ledger, in use
Quoted from the 13 documents that use the word — what it does to an interface, in the spec's own sentence.
The GL is a derived, read-only artefact you fetch from a separate Journals endpoint — which, since 2 March 2026, only apps on the Advanced tier or above that have passed Xero's security assessment and had their use case approved may call.
Lopifi APIs: Xero, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite — The mental model of each
AI-native GL for startups and the firms serving them.
GL detail for one account: every entry, with a running balance column.
For founders
The same idea written for a founder: what it costs a startup that ignores it, and what to do in a real month.
- General ledger and double-entry bookkeeping, explainedHow double entry works: journal entries, debits and credits, normal balances, running balances, the trial balance, and why posted entries are reversed.
- Form 941 and payroll tax deposits for startupsWhat Form 941 reports, monthly vs semiweekly deposits, the $100,000 next-day rule, FUTA, the R&D payroll credit, and what your provider can’t do.
- W-2 year end for startups: boxes, deadlines, correctionsThe W-2 boxes founders get wrong (box 1 vs 3 vs 5, box 12 codes), the W-3, the SSA deadline, state copies, and how to fix a mistake with a W-2c.
What it is not called
Each of these is a real word for a different thing. Using it here is what makes a product read as though it was built by someone who has not done the work.
- the database
- the books in UI copy
Components that render this
The concept is not documentation-only. These are the components that name it in their specification, grouped and stated exactly as the catalog states them.
Also in Foundations
Work with this concept
The calculators that compute it and the ledger payloads that carry it. A definition is where a reader starts; these are where they go next.
Defined in Lexicon. This page is generated from that document, so the two cannot disagree.