The Subsidiary Ledgers break down into detail the information found in the General Ledger giving specifics such as how much each customer owes, or how much a company owes each vendor it makes purchases from.

For example, they give a breakdown by vendor of the information in Accounts Payable that appears in the General Ledger. This information can be found in the Accounts Payable Subsidiary Ledger.

The figures recorded in theses ledgers enable a business owner to verify that the information in the General Ledger is correct. The following are some of the different kinds that a business can keep.
Accounts Receivable

This ledger tracks the total amount owed by each customer. In it a bookkeeper will record each of the sales or transactions for each customer that created this total. Accounts Payable tracks the total amount the business owes to each of its suppliers. In this ledger the bookkeeper will record each purchase made by supplier name.
Payroll

The Payroll Ledger keeps track or how much each employee has earned each pay period and the amount of taxes that were withheld from their paycheck. This is used for reporting payroll information to each of the different government agencies that require reporting, such as the IRS and state unemployment insurance and Worker’s Compensation Insurance.

Jobs In Progress

The Jobs in Progress ledger keeps track of the costs of each particular construction project that the business is working on. This Ledger helps a company to create a Profit & Loss Statement for each job so that the business will be able to see how the actual costs relate to the estimate it created while bidding for the contract. This information can be used to help improve the estimating process for a company.
Progress Billings

The Progress Billings journal is used for the purpose of tracking how much is billed to each project and how much is left to be billed. Billing can be according to percentage of the project completed, or by items completed if the project is being done in different phases of completion.