(i)    The business transactions are first recorded in the general journal and other books of original entry. They are then posted or transferred to various accounts in the ledger.

(ii)    In the subsidiary books, the transactions are recorded in chronological manner (in order of their occurrence). On the other hand, a ledger contains a number of separate accounts in a classified form. In each account the various business transactions pertaining to that account are posted from the journal(s) irrespective of their different dates of occurrence.

(iii)    The Debit as well as credit aspects of a transaction are entered in the journal in their respective amount columns – one below the other. But in the ledger, entries are posted in the respective accounts only with one aspect in each account i.e., debit or credit aspect.

(iv)    The journal does not disclose the complete position of an account i.e., how much ‘A’ owed to the business to ‘B’. The ledger on the other hand indicates the position of each account, debit-wise and credit-wise, as the case may be. In this manner the net position of each account is known immediately.