General Ledger Interface

A general ledger interface is the connection that carries accounting entries from operational systems into an organisation's general ledger. In a bank or payment company, systems such as core banking, card processing, payments and treasury each record transactions in their own subledgers. At set intervals, often daily, the interface summarises those transactions, maps them to accounts in the chart of accounts, and posts balanced journals into the main ledger, sometimes through an ERP system. A good interface keeps an audit trail from each summarised posting back to the underlying transactions, rejects or holds entries that fail validation, and supports reconciliation between operational balances and the books. Errors in the mapping rules are a common source of breaks, so changes to the interface are usually controlled closely. Also see subledger accounting.