While maintaining more than one ledger, do not adopt the self-balancing system. In such a situation, though separate Trial Balance cannot be prepared for each ledger but the arithmetical accuracy can be duly verified by preparing certain control accounts. This is called 'Sectional Balancing'. The sectional balancing refers to a system under which only a section of the group of ledgers is self-balanced. If a firm which uses three ledgers viz., Debtors Ledger, Creditors Ledger and General Ledger, makes only one ledger self-balancing (normally the General Ledger) it will be called 'Sectional Balancing System’. 

Normally the firms maintain one ledger for all the accounts involved. So long as the volume of transactions is small and the number of accounts is limited, this works fairly well. But, as the business expands and the number of accounts increases, especially those of the debtors and creditors, maintaining all accounts in a single ledger becomes impractical. The ledger becomes too bulky and location of errors involves more time. Hence many firms decide to introduce multiple ledger system whereby separate ledgers are kept for debtors and creditors and the entries are recorded in each ledger in such a way that a separate Trial Balance can be prepared for each ledger. This is called 'Self-balancing System'. 

No journal entries are passed for opening the accounts. They are prepared by extracting relevant 'figures from various subsidiary books. Like Debtors Ledger Adjustment Account, the Total Debtors Account includes the total amounts of all those items which have beer, debited or credited to role personal accounts of the wade debtors. Similarly, the Total Creditors Account, like the Creditors Led-ger Adjustment Account, includes the total amounts of ill those items which have been debited or credited to the personal accounts of the trade creditors. Look at Figures and note the sources of various items to be debited and credited in these control accounts.

The figure shows Sources of items for Total Debtors account and Creditors account