What is a general ledger?

Definition of a general ledger

The general ledger is all of a business’s accounts, assets, liabilities, income, expenses and capital and their contents. It's also known as a nominal ledger.

Before the days of computerised accounting a clerk, like Dickens’ Bob Cratchit, would write up a business’s transactions in a series of large leather-bound books called ledgers. He would list the sales invoices in the sales ledger, the purchase invoices (or bills) in the purchase ledger and everything else in the general ledger.