What are secondary books of accounts?

Secondary books of accounts are most commonly known as subsidiary books of accounts or day books. They are prepared to record the same type of journals in an ordered manner in a special book. They are nothing, but special journals.

Recording all the journals entries in a single journal and these posting them to different ledgers can be very difficult if the number of transactions is huge.

So, recording the same type of transactions in a special journal proves to be useful in efficient book-keeping and also information retrieval.

There are eight subsidiary books:

1. Cashbook – It is three types. (a) Single column cash book – It records only cash receipts and cash payments. (b) Double column cash book – Apart from cash receipts and cash payments, it also records bank receipts and bank payments. (c) Triple column cash book – It additionally records the discount allowed and discount received.
2. Purchase book – It records all the credit purchases except the purchase of assets.
3. Sales book – It records all the credit sales except the sale of assets.
4. Purchase return book – It records all the transactions related to the return of purchased goods.
5. Sale return book – It records all the transactions related to the return of goods from customers.
6. Bills receivable book – It records the particulars of all the bills drawn in favour of the business.
7. Bills payable book – It records the particulars of all the bills drawn in the name of the business.
8. Journal proper – It records those transactions which cannot be recorded in any of the above-mentioned books. For example, entry related to depreciation charged on assets.

Also, there are a few more things to know:-

1. Subsidiary books may look like ledger accounts but they are not ledgers. Ledgers are books of final entry and subsidiary books can be said to be the book of intermediate entry and are not but special journals.
2. Once transactions are recorded in the subsidiary books, they are then posted to the ledgers.