A control account that is maintained for the purpose of exercising control over the costing ledgers. It appears in the ledger of an accounting system that maintains separate books for financial and cost records. This involves recording all items of income and expenses taken from financial accounts and all transfers from cost accounts to books of account. A control account is opened in the cost ledger to complete the double entry in cost accounts.

All transactions in the cost ledger are recorded through this account. The balance in a cost control account is always be equal to the total of all the balances of the impersonal accounts. It balance should be equal to the cost ledger net total entries.

It is also known as a cost ledger control account or a general ledger adjustment account.