How do you find the balance on a ledger?

Question

Such as you have debits then credits listed, then you have balance column How do you get those numbers, can someone show me step by step?

Answer 1

Your credits have to equal your debits. For example everytime you take something out of your Cash account you have to record it as a credit to your expense account and vice versa so they match at the end. That is if you are doing double entry bookkeeping which most people do.

Answer 2

The general ledger will show each transaction. To total it, you would have to prepare a trial balance sheet of all of the accounts. To total one account, you would have to add up the beginning balance with the sum of the difference between the debits and the credits. For instance, if you want the balance of cash and you see the following:

Beginning balance 1000
Office Warehouse 100
Johns Hardware 400
Tri County Plumbing 500
John Doe 1800
Joe Q. Payroll 1000
Electric Company 200

The ledger balance for cash is 600 debit balance, which is positive for cash because it is an asset.

Answer 3

On each page of a old fashion ledger it is the bottom of the last column. In a computer general ledger it would be the total from the last two columns but it will have the total debits match the total credits so really be zero. Each individual account will have a total.

Answer 4

It depends on what type of account you're looking at. If, for example, you're looking at a Liability account, it should have a Credit balance. So what you would do is deduct all the Debits from Credits, which should leave you with a Credit balance (in theory, but not always).

To summarize: Asset and Expense accounts have Debit balance, Liabilities, Equity and Revenue accounts should all have Credit balances.

Hope that helps.

Answer 5

Add all of the debits, and get your total. Then add all of your credits. They should equal each other.

Answer 6

It is usually the last number at the bottom

Answer 7

u add it up?