11.6. Journal Entry
Note : You should never post a general journal to either Debtor Control or Creditor Control accounts. Any manipulation of these account balances should be done in Debtor Journals and Creditor Journals respectively.
General journals are used to post amounts from account to account within the general ledger. For example, monthly petty cash disbursements.
Note : If you need to post a journal to a bank account you need to enter it using the cashbook entry option. You can't use the journal entry option.
This option allows multi-sided journals to be entered into the General Ledger. Each transaction entry can be edited if required, and the whole journal will be posted only when the total debits equal the total credits.
Date This field defaults to the system date. If you need to back-date the journal, enter the new date.
Reference Enter a reference by which this journal will be identified. This can be letters, numbers or a mixture of both.
Description You may, if you wish, enter a default description. This will appear on the Transaction and General Ledger Reports.
Code Enter the account code for the transaction or press [F2] to pop-up a list of accounts.
Detail You can enter details for each line of the journal if required. Press [.] (a period) to repeat the last detail entry.
Debit/Credit The cursor will automatically jump to the column that will increase the account's balance. You don't need to remember whether debiting an account will increase it or decrease it - Equity does the remembering for you! If you need to decrease the account press [Enter] to change columns.
When you have entered the amount and pressed [Enter] the bottom line of the screen shows you the account and the way the entry will effect it. This can be used as a further check.
[Ins] allows you to add more lines to the journal. Each journal needs at least two lines as Credits must equal Debits.
[Enter] allows you to edit a transaction. You are able to change the information within the transaction that is highlighted.
Note : Total Debits and Credits must be equal before the whole journal can be posted.
When all transactions have been entered and total debits equal total credits, press [F10] to post the journal.
If you need to exit the journal without posting, press [Esc]. The journal details will not be lost and you are able to display them again by entering the journal reference.