Lesson Five: Posting Adjusting Entries to the General Ledger and Preparing an Adjusted Trial Balance

Before we dive right in, let’s review the general steps of the accounting cycle. As a note, these steps may differ slightly from your textbook, so please be sure to compare this resource to your textbook’s presentation of the accounting cycle.

1. Journalize general journal entries for business transactions throughout the accounting period
2. Post each journal entry to the general ledger
3. Prepare an unadjusted trial balance
4. Journalize adjusting entries
5. Post each adjusting entry to the general ledger
6. Prepare an adjusted trial balance
7. Prepare the company’s financial statements
8. Journalize closing entries
9. Post closing entries to the general ledger
10. Prepare a post-closing trial balance

Adjusting entries, like general journal entries that are made throughout the accounting cycle, must be posted to the general ledger to update the balance of each account what was debited/credited in the accounting entries.

The process of posting adjusting entries is almost identical to the method we use to post general journal entries, with the exception of the ITEM column: we will indicate that this posting is for an adjusting entry.

Since the posting process has already been reviewed, we will be combining this lesson with the step for preparing an adjusted trial balance. The process of taking balances from the general ledger and transferring them to an adjusted trial balance is the same as the process learned for preparing an unadjusted trial balance (Lesson 3), so hopefully this lesson will include topics you had already mastered in Lessons 2 and 3. Let’s get started!

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It looks like you’ve mastered this lesson. Move on to Lesson Six: