Think of a deposit ticket: It lists (if filled out properly, which few people do 😛 ) 27 checks by name and amount, but has 1 total amount of the deposit, and that 1 total amount is the amount that shows up on your bank statement. The detail is in your deposit book's carbon copies. If your records have a cash receipts journal separate from the general ledger, then they'd mimic your bank statement and deposit book; the cash receipts journal would list each check received individually, and the general ledger bank account would have one total for the day which matched the total on the bank statement.
I think the practicality of having a cash receipts ledger that posts totals to the general ledger varies based on the size of the company that is being discussed. A company that can operate within QuickBooks would likely find it way more hassle than it's worth. However, if you consider a huge company – for example, Walmart – then you can see how having every individual sale be entered as a separate entry against the bank cash account within its ledger would result in a ridiculous number of transactions and make any reconciliations nearly impossible.
My employer is a small college, so we have a fair number of transactions flowing through our system, though not nearly as many as a company with a similar revenue stream but smaller transactions (like a retail environment). I've been considering the usefulness of separating it within our GL, since right now at certain times of the month the history for a given day in the cash account is very long. Since it's something to consider at our size, I can see what it would be absolutely necessary for a larger organization.
.