General Ledger systematically maintains records of transactions that take place in daily operations and keeps these records in standardized files, called journals, which can be displayed or printed. The software package also provides financial and comparative reports and listings that indicate the financial status of your business, and working reports that help with entry during posting and file maintenance.

The application ties into the Job Cost Accounting, Accounts Payable, and Payroll systems, which optimizes data storage and maintenance.

The Taurus computerized Chart of Accounts is a powerful, flexible tool for full business accounting and reporting. The General Ledger is installed in your computer with the accounts already fixed as either debit or credit accounts.

The General Ledger Chart of Accounts includes four Posting Accounts and thirteen Framework Accounts. Posting Accounts involve dollar transactions; you can post or enter transactions to these accounts. Memo Accounts are a special type of posting account used to post and accumulate non-dollar transactions with units such as gallons, tons, or bushels. Framework Accounts provide the framework on which a report is printed and thereby control the appearance of reports. These accounts do this by producing blank lines, titles, totals, schedules, or new pages.

A profit center is a functional area of a business with separate financial records. Using different profit centers provides better accounting control and gives management more detailed information about the operation of the different parts of the business.

The General Ledger allows you to duplicate profit center information for accounts that may share information in the Chart of Accounts. This procedure avoids time consuming entry of the same data for different profit centers.

The General Ledger System uses four main journals into which all transactions are posted (one journal at a time) for permanent record keeping.

The General Journal is used to record business transactions not recorded in the special journals (Cash Receipt/Sales, Cash Disbursements/Accounts Payable, Standard Entry Journal).

Cash Receipts Journal (also called Accounts Receivable or Sales) is used to post payments from customers or clients.

Cash Disbursements Journal (also called Accounts Payable) is used to post money paid out by the business to vendors, banks, and employees.

The Standard Entry Journal is used to post business transactions that remain the same over several fiscal periods.

As transactions are entered into the journals, the system adds references, descriptions and codes to indicate which journal is involved, the date and category of the transaction, and what type of report the transaction affects. Thus, an audit trail is created so the transaction can be traced back to the appropriate journal/source document.

When you have finished journal entries for an account, the entries are summarized into one transaction and added to the General Ledger. The General Ledger retains all summary transactions until the books are closed, usually at the end of the fiscal year.

The period ending dates determine the nature of the posting procedure and are used to show comparative figures in financial reports. You can modify the ending dates at any time.

Several reports are generated from the General Ledger data. Many are useful in analyzing the financial position of the company. Two examples include:

The balance sheet that itemizes the basic equation

The Income Statement (or Profit and Loss) which shows the net income or loss for a selected period of operations

Other reports show the trend of various business