Recording a Journal Entry

A journal entry moves money between accounts in your books — for example recording rent, an owner's investment, or an opening balance. Every entry has two sides: the account money goes into (a debit) and the account it comes from (a credit). The two sides must always match — that's what keeps your books honest.

StepsCopy Anchor Link

1. Open Accountant → Journal from the sidebar and click New journal entry.
2. In the Voucher card, pick the Date — the day the entry belongs to. Underneath it the form names the month you have landed in and tells you whether it is open; closed months reject new entries.
3. Leave Currency as it is unless this entry is in another one. It starts as your business currency from Settings → Organization, and every line is booked in the currency shown here.
4. Reference is optional — your own document number, if you have one. It has to be a number you have not used before; the same reference twice is rejected when you post.
5. Write a short Narration so future-you knows what this was (e.g. "October rent"). It shows up in the Day Book and on every ledger line the entry touches.
6. Fill in the Entry Lines. Each line is one account plus an amount in either the Debit or the Credit column — never both. The little Dr or Cr tag on the left appears as soon as you type an amount, so you can see at a glance which side each line is on. Use Add line for a third or fourth account. Example for paying $500 rent from the bank:
   • Line 1: Rent Expense — Debit 500.00 (the cost lands here)
   • Line 2: Bank — Credit 500.00 (the money left here)
7. Watch the Totals row — debits and credits update live. The coloured strip underneath answers the balance question only: green Debit equals credit means the two sides agree, red Out of balance by … tells you exactly how far off you are. Agreeing on the total is necessary but not always enough — the checks in the next step are the full answer.
8. Read Before You Post on the right before you commit. Each line is one condition — the two sides agreeing, every line naming an account, the month being open, and a reminder that a reference can only be used once. A green tick is done, an amber mark is worth knowing, a red mark stops the entry.
9. Click Post entry at the bottom of the right column. If it is greyed out, the sentence right underneath says why — fix that one thing and it unlocks. That sentence is the last word: trust it over the balance strip if the two ever disagree.
10. Not ready to post? The amber bar at the bottom saves the entry as a Draft instead — drafts don't count in your books until posted.

Seeing what the entry will doCopy Anchor Link

The T-Account Effect card on the right redraws itself as you type. It shows one small block per account you have touched, with the debit side on the left in green and the credit side on the right in blue. It is the quickest way to catch a line booked to the wrong side: if money you expected to leave an account is showing up as a debit, the two amounts are the wrong way round.

Lines that have an account but no amount are dropped when the entry is saved — the checks on the right warn you about those before you commit, so nothing disappears quietly.

Reading the Journal listCopy Anchor Link

The Journal page opens on a summary of the date range you're looking at, above the list:

• Entries, Posted, Draft and Reversed count what happened in that range, and the Entry Status bar underneath shows the same split as one line.
• In Exceptions counts documents that auto-posting could not book at all — they never reached the journal. If that number isn't zero, go to Accountant → Auto-posting → Exceptions (see Booking Sales Automatically).

Each row shows the date, where the entry came from, the narration, the account debited, the account credited, the amount, and the status. Click the narration to open the entry.

To narrow the list:

• Change the date range in the toolbar above the table — it moves the figures at the top of the page with it.
• Click Filter to limit by Status (Posted, Draft, Reversed) or by Source. Filters apply as you pick them; the count on the Filter button tells you how many are active.
• Click Export to download what's on screen as a spreadsheet.

Checking one day: the Day BookCopy Anchor Link

Switch to the Day Book tab to see everything recorded on a single date, in the order it was recorded, with the day's totals pinned to the bottom of the table.

1. Open the Day Book tab.
2. Pick the date with the date picker that appears in the top-right.
3. Read down the Debit and Credit columns. The pinned bottom row gives the day's two totals — they should be the same figure.

The Day Book is never split across pages: what you see is everything recorded on that date.

Fixing a posted entryCopy Anchor Link

Posted entries are final — there is no edit button, on purpose. To correct one:

1. Open the entry from the Journal list.
2. Click Reverse entry in the top-right and confirm. This posts a new entry with the sides flipped, cancelling the original out, and takes you straight to it. Nothing is deleted.

The reversing entry carries a Reverses entry … link in its Details panel, so from a correction you can always get back to what it corrected.

TipsCopy Anchor Link

• The form checks the month before you post, so a closed month is flagged in Before You Post rather than failing after the fact — use a date in an open month, or reopen the month first (see Closing a Month).
• Drafts can be posted later: open the draft from the list and click Post entry in the top-right.
• New journal entry, Post entry and Reverse entry only appear if you're allowed to post to the books. If you can't see them, ask whoever manages permissions.