When a business makes a payment to a credit supplier this payment will be recorded in the “Purchases Ledger” or “Trade Payables” column of the Cash Book. The total of this column will, in time, be posted to the debit side of the Purchases Ledger Control Account in the General Ledger but the individual payments will also have to be posted to the supplier accounts in the Purchases Ledger (again on the debit side of the accounts).
Illustration
The payment side of a Cash Book is shown below (the entries to be posted to the Purchases Ledger are highlighted in yellow):
The postings list to the Purchases Ledger is therefore as follows:
The entries that would be made to the Purchase Ledger Supplier Accounts are shown below. Note that we might alternatively have recorded bank references (e.g. cheque numbers) next the the amounts paid.
Lastly, it is worth noting that the postings to the Purchases Ledger are the same irrespective of whether or not the Cash Book is being used as part of the double-entry bookkeeping system.
