A single account that controls a set of subsidiary accounts. In other words, it summarizes the subsidiary accounts in order to simplify presentation on the chart of accounts and general ledger. It shows totals of similar transactions- i.e., the total balances of multiple individual accounts in a subsidiary ledger. For instance, accounts receivable (a control account) may have postings from many individual similar accounts (subsidiary accounts) which in turn are maintained in a subsidiary ledger. Each subsidiary account receivable contributes to the control account which only shows the total of all subsidiary accounts, leaving projection of details to the so-called memorandum ledger (sub-ledger). In a nutshell, the control account “accounts receivable” presents a summary of all transactions relating to individual accounts receivable. Entries in subsidiary accounts must be double-checked against similar entries in the control account and vice versa.

Other examples of a control account, for a manufacturing company, include direct labor control account, work-in-progress control account, and overheads control account.