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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.dualentry.com/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

General Ledger

The General Ledger is the central record of every financial transaction in DualEntry. All posting activity such as bills, invoices, payments, and journal entries ultimately posts here as debits and credits against your chart of accounts. This section covers how to structure the ledger, record entries, and protect closed periods.

How the ledger fits together

DualEntry’s General Ledger has three core components. The chart of accounts defines the structure: what accounts exist, how they’re numbered, and what type of balance each one carries. Posting transactions write to the ledger. Period locking closes the books for a given month or quarter so posted entries can’t be altered after review. Transactions that post to the General Ledger include (but are not limited to) journal entries, invoices, bills, customer payments, vendor payments, cash sales, direct expenses, customer credits, vendor credits, customer prepayments, vendor prepayments, customer prepayment applications, vendor prepayment applications, amortization, depreciation, and revenue recognition entries. Operational records such as sales orders, purchase orders, and contracts are non-posting; they live in their sub-ledgers as commitments and only affect the GL when they convert into a posting transaction (a purchase order becomes a bill, a sales order becomes an invoice, a contract releases a milestone). When you post a vendor bill, for example, the bill itself impacts the General Ledger (debiting expense and crediting accounts payable) without creating a separate journal entry. The General Ledger is the single source of truth that ties sub-ledger detail to your financial statements.

Multi-entity, multi-currency, and getting started

If you operate multiple legal entities, each company maintains its own ledger while sharing a common chart of accounts structure. Intercompany journal entries let you record transactions that span two or more entities and balance in aggregate. For organizations that transact in multiple currencies, journal entries support a currency and exchange_rate field at the header level, with reporting handled through multi-currency reporting. Exchange rates can be set per entry or pulled from a rate table you maintain in DualEntry. If you’re setting up DualEntry for the first time, work through the pages in this order:
  1. Chart of accounts - define your account structure and numbering.
  2. Journal entries - understand how transactions are recorded and posted.
  3. Period locking - lock periods after close to protect your books.
Once the ledger is in place, move to Close Management to build your month-end close workflow, or explore AI Automation for intelligent categorization and anomaly detection on your ledger data.
Last modified on May 28, 2026