General Ledger

The General Ledger is the master record of every posted accounting entry, grouped by account. Where the Trial Balance shows one net balance per account, the General Ledger drills in and shows each individual line item — the date, description, debit or credit amount, and running total. It's the report your auditor will spend the most time in, and it's your primary tool whenever you need to answer the question "how did this account end up with that balance?"

When a number on the Statement of Activities or the Trial Balance looks wrong, the Trial Balance tells you which account is off, but it doesn't tell you why. The General Ledger is where you find the why. Every line shows exactly which transaction posted to the account, and you can click through to the transaction detail to see the full context. For auditors, this report is the primary evidence that each reported balance is supported by underlying transactions.

• Posted transactions in at least one accounting period (draft and voided transactions are excluded from the report body)
• A date range in mind — the full-ledger view for a large nonprofit can be hundreds of pages, so narrowing the range is almost always the right move

Running the report

1. Go to Reports > General Ledger (in the sidebar).
2. Set the date range using the filter controls. The report shows every line item posted to every account during that window.
3. Optionally filter by fund, program, or fiscal year to scope the report.
4. Click "Apply" to generate the report.

Reading the report

The report is grouped by account. For each account you'll see:

• The account code and name as a section header
• The account type label (Asset, Liability, Net Asset, Revenue, Expense)
• A line for each posted entry in chronological order — date, description, debit amount, credit amount
• A net change showing total debits minus total credits for the period

At the bottom of each account group, NP Ledger shows the number of entries and the net change. At the very end of the report, you'll see the total line item count and grand totals for debits and credits across every account. Those grand totals should always match each other — if they don't, the underlying data is out of balance and the Trial Balance will flag it too.

Exporting the report

1. Click "CSV" to download a spreadsheet version. This is the most common export for auditors because they can sort and filter it themselves.
2. Click "PDF" to download a formatted document suitable for bound audit binders.

• The grand total of debits equals the grand total of credits. This is the same balance check the Trial Balance performs, and it should always pass.
• Accounts you expect to see are present. If a revenue or expense account has no entries in the period, it won't appear in the report body — that's normal, but verify it matches your expectations.
• Each entry ties to a real transaction. Click through to the transaction detail to see the other side of the entry (debits always have matching credits on the same transaction).

• Running the General Ledger without a date filter. For an active organization, the default full-history view can be enormous. Always scope by fiscal year or a narrower range unless you specifically need everything.
• Looking for voided transactions. By design, the General Ledger excludes void transactions from balances so the report reflects what's actually in effect. The original transaction and its reversing entry are still in the audit trail on the transaction list — you can find them there if you need to see the history.
• Expecting running balances that carry across periods. The net change shown for each account is scoped to the date range you selected. For a period-end balance, use the Trial Balance or the Statement of Financial Position.
• Confusing General Ledger with an Account Register. The Account Register is a single-account view with opening balance, running balance per line, and interactive editing. The General Ledger is a read-only, multi-account audit report for a time window. Use the register when you're doing day-to-day bookkeeping on one account, and use the General Ledger when you need the full picture across all accounts.

Accountant note: In classical double-entry bookkeeping, the journal (chronological list of transactions) is the "book of original entry" and the ledger (transactions reorganized by account) is the "book of final entry." NP Ledger's Transaction List is the journal view, and this General Ledger report is the ledger view — the same underlying data, reorganized for a different purpose. For audit support, pair this report with the Trial Balance: the Trial Balance proves the books are balanced, and the General Ledger shows the evidence behind each account's balance.