Finalizing the General Ledger for Your Business After you
complete your accounting work for the accounting cycle in which
your business operates, it’s time to reexamine your General
Ledger. Some accounts in the General Ledger need to be zeroed
out so that they start the new accounting cycle with no detail
from the previous cycle, while other accounts continue to
accumulate detail from one cycle to the next. When you break
down the General Ledger, the balance sheet accounts carry
forward into the next accounting cycle, and the income statement
accounts start with a zero balance. Zeroing out income statement
accounts When you’ve made all needed corrections and adjustments
to your income statement accounts, you can zero out all General
Ledger accounts listed on the income statement: revenues, Cost
of Goods Sold, and expense accounts. Because the income
statement reflects the activities of an accounting period, these
accounts always start with a zero balance at the beginning of an
accounting cycle. If you use a c