VPRS 11235 General Ledgers

Full description

A ledger is a record in which the individual accounts of a business or organisation are kept. A ledger contains summaries of transactions for particular classifications of account. An example of such a classification is the cash account. The latter may be managed through cash books.

The ledger is divided into the main general ledger and specialised subsidiary ledgers. The general ledger comprises all the main accounts and a complete double-entry record is maintained in it. It constitutes the complete record of accounts in summary form for the business or organisation.

The trial balances are prepared from the general ledger. In turn, the final financial reports are prepared from the trial balance.

This series consists of General Ledgers kept as part of the Melbourne Harbor Trust Commissioners (MHTC) accounting system. The four volumes comprising the series are dated 1877-1907. They are therefore the first four general ledgers recorded by the MHTC. Given that the Indexes to General Ledgers continued until at least 1913 it is most likely that this series of general ledgers continued until at least that year.

The General Ledgers recorded the total amount of expenditure and receipts/revenue incurred/received by the MHTC and thus helped ascertain the financial position of the organisation in general, and the status of specific accounts in particular.