Which document provides the source data for financial statements (the primary ledger reference)?

• A. Trial balance
• B. General ledger postings
• C. Summary of accounts in the general ledger
• D. Balance sheet

Answer: (C)

Financial statements are prepared from the balances held in the general ledger. The document that consolidates all of those balances into a single view is the summary of accounts in the general ledger. It lists every account with its ending debit or credit balance, providing the numbers used to construct the income statement, balance sheet, and other reports. The general ledger postings are the individual transactions that feed those accounts, and the balance sheet is one of the statements produced from that summarized data, not the source itself. In many contexts, this consolidated summary is essentially the same as a trial balance, but the description here points to the organized summary of all accounts as the source data for the statements.