Ledger Account Format
A ledger account in the T format — debit entries against credit entries, balanced off with the balance carried down.
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Ledger account for [period]
| Date | Dr Particulars | J.F. | ₹ | Date | Cr Particulars | J.F. | ₹ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [debit entries — date | particulars | J.F. | amount] | [credit entries — date | particulars | J.F. | amount] | ||||||
| Total | 0.00 | Total | 0.00 |
What is a Ledger Account?
A ledger account brings together every transaction that affects one account — a customer, a supplier, cash, rent or sales — so its balance can be read at a glance. In the T format, debits go on the left and begin with ‘To’, and credits go on the right and begin with ‘By’, each with its date, journal folio and amount. Without ledger accounts, the journal is only a diary of transactions, and nobody can say what a customer owes or how much cash should be in hand. Fill in the form on this page to prepare and balance a ledger account.
Bookkeepers, accountants and small business owners post entries from the journal and the subsidiary books — the cash book, purchases book and sales book — to the ledger, often daily or weekly, and balance each account at the end of the month or year. The balances then go into the trial balance and, from there, into the final accounts. Traders also send a customer a copy of their account to confirm what is outstanding. Commerce students meet the ledger in Class 11 Accountancy and again in B.Com, where questions ask them to journalise transactions, post them to the ledger and balance the accounts.
The T format is a convention; the duty to keep books comes from law, and that differs. Companies must keep their books of account on the double-entry system under the Companies Act, 2013. For other businesses and professionals, check the income-tax rules on maintaining books of account and, if you are registered under GST, the GST law’s rules on accounts and how long records must be kept. Accounting software often shows the same ledger in a running-balance layout, with debit, credit and balance columns instead of a T. For exams, follow the format in your current CBSE, State board or university syllabus and textbook.
A ledger is the book of final entry, not of original entry: every amount in it should come from a journal entry or a subsidiary book. A balanced account proves only that the arithmetic works. It will not catch an entry posted to the wrong account, an amount wrong in both journal and ledger, or a transaction never recorded. Expense and income accounts are not carried down at the year end; enter the transfer to the Trading or Profit and Loss Account as the last line, and the account closes with no balance.
What to put in a Ledger Account
These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Business name | For example: Barton Supply Co. |
| Your address | For example: Unit 7, Barton Road, Columbus, OH 43212 |
| Account name | For example: Ramesh Traders Account |
| Period | For example: April 2026 |
| Opening balance optional | For example: 12,000 |
| Opening balance is | Free text |
| Debit entries | One per line: date | particulars | J.F. | amount |
| Credit entries | One per line: date | particulars | J.F. | amount |
How to prepare a ledger account
Name the account and the period
Enter your business name and address, then the account’s name exactly as it appears in the journal: ‘Cash Account’, ‘Ananya Rao Account’, ‘Rent Account’. Give the period the account covers, such as ‘October 2026’ or ‘April 2026 to March 2027’. Each account gets its own page, or its own folio in a bound ledger, so that every posting to it can be found and checked against the entry it came from.
Bring in the opening balance
If the account has a balance from the previous period, enter it and choose whether it is a debit or a credit balance. A debit balance appears first on the debit side as ‘To Balance b/d’; a credit balance appears on the credit side as ‘By Balance b/d’. Cash, other assets, expenses and customers normally carry debit balances; capital, liabilities, income and suppliers carry credit balances. Leave it blank for a new account.
Post the debits on the left with ‘To’
For each journal entry that debits this account, enter one line: date | particulars | J.F. | amount. The particulars name the other account in that entry — the one credited — so a cash sale appears in the Cash Account as ‘To Sales A/c’. J.F. is the journal folio, the page of the journal the entry came from. The form adds ‘To’ if you leave it out. Type dates as in the sample, 2026-10-05, and they print in full.
Post the credits on the right with ‘By’
For each entry that credits this account, add a line on the credit side in the same way, naming the account debited in that entry: cash paid into the bank appears in the Cash Account as ‘By Bank A/c’, and the form adds ‘By’ for you. The particulars never name the account you are writing in. After posting, write this account’s page number in the L.F. column of the journal, so that each entry can be traced in both directions.
Balance the account and carry it down
The form totals both sides. The difference is written on the side with the smaller total as Balance c/d (carried down), so that both totals agree, and it is then brought down on the opposite side as Balance b/d to open the next period. A heavier debit side gives a debit balance; a heavier credit side gives a credit balance. Check that the result makes sense: cash in hand, for example, can never have a credit balance.
Ledger account examples
Two worked examples for Kusagra Supplies Ltd., Guntur: three transactions journalised and posted to the Cash Account, which ends with a debit balance, and a supplier’s account, which ends with a credit balance.
Cash Account with a debit balance
Kusagra Supplies Ltd. — Cash Account, October 2026
Cash in hand on 1 October 2026: ₹50,000 (debit balance)
Journal entries
5 Oct · Furniture A/c Dr. ₹20,000, To Cash A/c (Being furniture bought for cash)
9 Oct · Cash A/c Dr. ₹35,000, To Sales A/c (Being goods sold for cash)
26 Oct · Bank A/c Dr. ₹40,000, To Cash A/c (Being cash deposited into the bank)
Dr — debit side
1 Oct · To Balance b/d · ₹50,000
9 Oct · To Sales A/c · J.F. 1 · ₹35,000
Total · ₹85,000
Cr — credit side
5 Oct · By Furniture A/c · J.F. 1 · ₹20,000
26 Oct · By Bank A/c · J.F. 1 · ₹40,000
31 Oct · By Balance c/d · ₹25,000
Total · ₹85,000
1 Nov · To Balance b/d · ₹25,000 — the cash that should be in hand at the start of November
Supplier’s account with a credit balance
Kusagra Supplies Ltd. — Lakshmi Devi Account, October 2026
Journal entries
6 Oct · Purchases A/c Dr. ₹30,000, To Lakshmi Devi A/c (Being goods bought on credit)
16 Oct · Lakshmi Devi A/c Dr. ₹18,000, To Bank A/c (Being part payment made by cheque)
23 Oct · Lakshmi Devi A/c Dr. ₹2,000, To Purchases Returns A/c (Being damaged goods returned)
Dr — debit side
16 Oct · To Bank A/c · J.F. 1 · ₹18,000
23 Oct · To Purchases Returns A/c · J.F. 1 · ₹2,000
31 Oct · To Balance c/d · ₹10,000
Total · ₹30,000
Cr — credit side
6 Oct · By Purchases A/c · J.F. 1 · ₹30,000
Total · ₹30,000
1 Nov · By Balance b/d · ₹10,000 — the amount Kusagra Supplies still owes Lakshmi Devi
Common mistakes
- Writing the account’s own name in the particulars, such as ‘To Cash A/c’ inside the Cash Account, which breaks the link to the journal and leaves nobody able to trace where the amount came from.
- Posting an amount to the wrong side of an account, which throws its balance out by twice that amount and makes the trial balance disagree at the end of the period.
- Bringing the balance down on the same side it was carried down from, so the next period opens with a debit balance shown as a credit, or the other way round.
- Leaving the J.F. column blank, so a duplicated or missing posting cannot be traced back to its journal entry without checking every page of the journal.
- Carrying down the balance of an expense or income account at the year end instead of transferring it to the Trading or Profit and Loss Account, which muddles this year’s figures into next year’s.
Frequently asked questions
What is the format of a ledger account?
A ledger account is ruled in two halves under the account’s name. The left side, marked Dr, records debits, and the right side, marked Cr, records credits. Each side has columns for the date, particulars, journal folio (J.F.) and amount. Debit entries begin with ‘To’ and credit entries with ‘By’, followed by the name of the other account in the transaction. At the end of the period the account is balanced off with Balance c/d and Balance b/d.
How do you prepare a ledger account?
Give every account named in the journal its own page in the ledger. Take each journal entry in turn. In the account debited, write the date, ‘To’ and the name of the account credited, the journal folio and the amount on the debit side. In the account credited, write ‘By’ and the name of the account debited on the credit side. Then note the ledger page in the journal’s L.F. column, and balance each account at the end of the period.
How do you balance a ledger account?
Add up both sides. Write the difference on the side with the smaller total as ‘Balance c/d’, so that both totals agree, and rule them off. Then bring the same figure down on the opposite side as ‘Balance b/d’, dated the first day of the next period. If the debit side was heavier, the account has a debit balance; if the credit side was heavier, it has a credit balance.
What is the difference between journal and ledger?
The journal is the book of original entry: each transaction is recorded there first, in date order, with its debit, credit and narration. The ledger is the book of final entry: the same amounts are posted from the journal and grouped by account, so you can see the balance of each one. The journal shows what happened on each date; the ledger shows where each account stands. The trial balance is prepared from the ledger.
What do ‘To’ and ‘By’ mean in a ledger?
They show which side an entry is on. ‘To’ is written before entries on the debit side and ‘By’ before entries on the credit side, each followed by the name of the other account in the transaction. ‘To Sales A/c’ in the Cash Account means cash was debited because of a sale. Some textbooks and computerised ledgers leave the words out, so follow the style your syllabus or office uses.
What is J.F. in a ledger?
J.F. stands for journal folio: the page number of the journal on which the entry was first recorded. Writing it against each posting lets anyone go from the ledger back to the original entry and its narration. The journal has a matching column, L.F. (ledger folio), for the page of the ledger the entry was posted to. Together the two columns show that an entry has been posted and where to find it.
What is balance c/d and balance b/d?
Balance c/d means balance carried down: the figure written on the smaller side at the end of a period so that both sides total the same. Balance b/d means balance brought down: the same figure entered on the opposite side at the start of the next period, so the account opens with what it closed with. When totals move to a new page rather than a new period, books write c/f and b/f instead: carried forward and brought forward.
This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.