Detail behind a single total
A general ledger balance such as accounts receivable is one number. It cannot tell you which customer is late or which invoice is still open. The subledger supplies that detail, with a line for each customer, invoice and payment. The general ledger account it supports is called the control account, and its balance is the sum of everything in the subledger.
Receivables and payables are the most familiar subledgers. Others are common in larger or more specialized businesses: inventory by item, fixed assets by asset, and payroll by employee. A small business with few transactions may track some of this in a spreadsheet instead, which works as long as the totals are tied back to the ledger.
An illustrative example
Suppose a business has three open customer invoices at month end: $1,200, $800 and $500. The receivables subledger shows those three lines, and the general ledger control account shows $2,500. If the control account shows $2,900, something has been posted to one side only. Typical causes are a payment applied to the wrong customer, an entry dated in a different period from the one you are reporting, or an adjustment made to the total without a matching customer line.
The figures are round and ignore sales tax so the comparison is easy to follow. In practice, the fix is to find the $400 entry, then correct it so it posts through an invoice, a credit note or a payment that the subledger can see, rather than adjusting the total.
Common problems
Most subledger trouble comes from entries that bypass the normal workflow, such as a customer payment recorded as general income, or a supplier bill entered as an expense without going through payables. Old unapplied credits and payments also sit in a subledger for months and quietly distort the aged balances.
The subledger is a bookkeeping record, not a tax filing. Still, the Canada Revenue Agency expects your records to let you calculate the amounts you report, including GST/HST collected and input tax credits, and to be supported by invoices and receipts. A subledger that agrees with the ledger and points to those documents is much easier to rely on.
What to discuss with your accountant
Ask which subledgers your business needs and how often each is reconciled to its control account, ideally at every month end. Ask who is allowed to post manual entries to a control account, and whether closed periods are locked.
Bring an aged receivables report and an aged payables report with the subledger totals, and ask your accountant to confirm they match the trial balance. If they do not, agree on who will trace the difference before year-end reporting begins.
Sources & editorial notes
Sources checked October 24, 2026. The examples are illustrative and provide general information. Discuss how the guidance applies to your circumstances with your accountant.
- Business recordsCanada Revenue Agency
- GST/HST and payroll recordsCanada Revenue Agency
Rules and guidance can change. Use the current official source and confirm the treatment for your facts. To flag an error, contact Sora.