Three variants
- Cash-flow ledger: untangle owner card, WeChat/Alipay, petty cash and company account flows so you can see where money really moves;
- Inventory ledger: link purchasing, stock and sales so gross margin is measured rather than estimated;
- Full management ledger: complete the internal management view on top of statutory bookkeeping, producing a decision-ready set of statements.
Industry variants
Manufacturers need production cost and process accounting, project businesses need revenue and cost tracked by project, chain stores need per-store P&L — all customised beyond the standard chart of accounts.
The statements owners actually want
- Which customer, product or project is making money;
- Where the money goes and what is eating the margin;
- How long the cash runway lasts and how far expansion can go next.
Management accounting exists to answer exactly those three questions with numbers.