Type of Subsidiary Book- Cash Book (Part 1)

                                    Subsidiary Books 

Subsidiary Books are those books of original entry in which transactions of similar nature are recorded at one place and in chronological order. In a big concern, recording of all transactions in one Journal and posting them into various ledger accounts will be difficult and involve a lot of clerical work.

This is avoided by sub-dividing the journal into various subsidiary journals or books. The subdivisions of journal into various subsidiary journals for recording transactions of similar nature are called as ‘Subsidiary Books.

Type of Subsidiary Book- Cash Book

                                 Cash book is a record of all the transactions related to cash. Examples include: expenses paid in cash, revenue collected in cash, payments made to creditors, payments received from debtors, cash deposited in bank, withdrawn of cash for office use, etc.


In double column cash book, a discount column is included on both debit and credit sides to record the discount allowed to customers and the discount received from creditors, respectively.


In triple column cash book, one more column of bank is included to record all the transactions relating to bank.

Single Column Cash Book

Cash book is just like a ledger account. There is no need to open a separate cash account in the ledger. The balance of cash book is directly posted to the trial balance. Since cash account is a real account, ruling is followed, i.e. what comes in – debit, and what goes out – credit. All the received cash is posted in the debit side and all payments and expenses are posted in the credit side of the cash book.

Format for Single Column Cash Book:

Double Column Cash Book:

Double column cash book or two column cash book shows two amount columns in debit side and same column in credit site. The most common two column cash book are:

           1. Cash book with discount and cash columns

           2. Cash book with cash and bank columns

A two column cash book is one in which there are two columns on each side. One is used to record cash transactions, the second is used to record bank transactions or discount. When a trader keeps a bank account it becomes necessary to record the amounts deposited into bank and withdrawals from it.

Format for Double Column Cash Book:

Three Column Cash Book:

A three -column cash book is one in which there are three columns on each side – debit and credit side. One is used to record cash transactions, the second is used to record bank transactions and third is used to record discount received and paid.

Here we have gone through the Cash Book and Its types along with their format. In the Next post we will learn about the remaining Subsidiary books in detail.