A type of account that is controlled by a single account known as a control account. This account is part of a subsidiary ledger (such as accounts payable ledger, accounts receivable ledger, fixed assets ledger, inventory ledger, and so on), which provides summarized results to a control account in the general ledger (GL).

As a list of individual accounts, a subsidiary account is used by an entity to track accounting information with a detailed focus on specific types or sets of transactions such as accounts receivable (ARs) and accounts payable (APs), in terms of transactions, volume of transactions, etc. The general ledger is reconciled with subsidiary accounts in order to ascertain that relevant information is reflected in the control accounts.

The combined balances of subsidiary ledgers subsidiary ledger is equal the balance in a related general ledger account.

Examples of subsidiary accounts include vendor records (for individual vendors) and customer records (for individual customers), etc.