# Posting to the ledger

> The 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.

Source: https://lopifi.com/learn/posting-to-the-ledger
Part of: Lopifi — US GAAP books on autopilot, reviewed by a CPA (https://lopifi.com)

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**What does it mean to post a journal entry to the ledger?** The 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.

A journal in date order cannot answer "how much cash do we have?" without reading all of it. So every line is copied to the account it names, and each account keeps a running balance. That copy is [Posting](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/posting), and the accounts together are the [general ledger](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/general-ledger).

*[The accounting cycle, at: ledger]*

*[Account register: 1000]*

The cash account as a register: every movement, in date order, with the balance after each.

*[Interactive figure: general ledger]*

Northwind's September transactions, filed line by line into five drawers. Each card carries its drawer's running balance on the drawer's normal side — the same re-sort the register above does for one account.

Two things about a posted line are worth saying plainly. First, it keeps its reference — JE-9 on this row is a link back to the entry that produced it and to the evidence behind that entry. A balance you cannot walk back to a document is not evidence of anything. Second, a posted entry is never edited or deleted. If it is wrong, it is corrected by a [Reversal](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/reversal) and a new entry, so the record of what was believed, and when, survives.

**Wrong:** UPDATE journal_lines SET amount = 8400 WHERE id = 219

**Right:** Post JE-14 reversing JE-11, then post JE-15 with the right figure

The audit trail is the product. A system that lets you edit a posted entry cannot tell an auditor what the books said last Tuesday.

*[Interactive figure: posting and reversal]*

JE-11 keyed as $4,800 instead of $8,400. The posted entry stays exactly as it was; JE-14 reverses it line for line and JE-15 posts the right figure, so the record of what was believed, and when, survives.

## Where the balances end up

*[T-account: 1200]*

Accounts receivable: $22,000 invoiced, $14,000 collected, $8,000 still owed at 30 September.

## Control accounts and subledgers

That receivable account has a second job. With one customer it is easy to read, but a real business invoices hundreds, and the general ledger should not carry an account per customer. So 1200 is a [control account](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/control-account): one balance in the ledger, with the detail — which customer, which invoice, how old — kept in a [Subledger](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/subledger) underneath it. Northwind's receivables subledger has exactly one open invoice, the trade customer's, with $8,000 left on it. The rule that makes the arrangement safe is that the subledger must always sum to the control account; lesson 13 is where that gets proved.

Post every line of every transaction and you have twelve accounts with a balance each. That set of balances is the next lesson — and the moment you can prove the whole month arithmetically.

**Exercise — Post every movement through Cash.** Nine entries touched cash in September. They are listed in date order with the amounts blanked from row four down — fill them in from the entries in this lesson and watch the running balance. The ledger should land on $32,900 at 30 September. Type it in the workbook at https://lopifi.com/playground.

**Check yourself.** JE-11 was posted with payroll of 4,800 instead of 8,400. What is the fix?

- Open JE-11 and change the figure — the period is still open. — An open period allows new entries, not rewritten ones. Overwriting a posted line erases the evidence of what the ledger said before.

- Post a reversal of JE-11, then a new entry for 8,400 — or a single correcting entry for the 3,600 difference. — Both leave a trail: anyone can see what was posted, what replaced it, and when. Which one a team uses is policy; editing in place is not an option either way.

- Delete JE-11 and post it again. — Deleting a posted entry is the one thing a ledger must not allow. A gap in the sequence is itself a red flag to an auditor.

- **Lesson:** 6 of 13 — 8 min
- **Terms taught:** [Posting](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/posting), [General ledger](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/general-ledger), [T-account](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/t-account), [Subledger](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/subledger), [Control account](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/control-account), [Reversal](https://lopifi.com/md/glossary/reversal)
- **Previous:** [Recording the month](https://lopifi.com/md/learn/recording-the-month)
- **Next:** [The trial balance](https://lopifi.com/md/learn/the-trial-balance)
- **The course:** https://lopifi.com/learn