Journal Entries

Journal entries can be used to complete a variety of different functions in your Financial Accounting. Often times, they are used to record interest on a bank account, recording bank fees or fixing errors that have happened in other transactions that have already been cleared, or occurred in a prior fiscal year. 

Just like other types of transactions, all journal entries will affect, at minimum, two different accounts, where one account will be debited, and another account will be credited. More accounts can be used, but in the end, your total debits must equal your total credits.

To understand how each account type is affected by Debits and Credits, the chart below lists each account type, and what causes that account type to be increased and decreased.

Account Type	Increases Balance	Decreases Balance
1 - Asset	Debit	Credit
2 - Liability	Credit	Debit
3 - Equity	Credit	Debit
5 - Income	Credit	Debit
6 - Expense	Debit	Credit
7 - Dedicated	Credit	Debit

Journal entries can have one of the following statuses:

» Completed — The journal entry has been written, but has not yet been cleared through the bank account reconciliation utility. Completed transactions affect the balance of the accounts used the in the transaction. Completed journal entries may be edited within the fiscal year they were written in.

» Cleared — The journal entry has been cleared through the bank account reconciliation utility. A journal entry in this status cannot be edited or voided. Note that it will not be possible to clear a journal entry that did not use a bank account as one of its line items, as only transactions that affect a bank account balance will appear in the Bank Account Reconciliation utility.

» Reversed payment — This is a journal entry that was automatically created when another transaction type, such as a check, has had the Stop payment status applied to it. A transaction with this status cannot be edited, voided or deleted. 

» Void — The journal entry has been voided, and all of its line items have been reversed, setting the journal entry balance to $0.00. Journal entries from a prior fiscal year cannot be voided; another journal entry would need to be created to reverse the debits and credits of the original transaction.

» Pending — The journal entry has been written, however, it is not yet affecting the balances of the accounts that were used in the transaction. Use this status if you want to write a journal entry, but you want it to take effect on a later date.

1. To access the Journal entries window, click on the "Activity" tab and then click "Journal entries". This view will default to show the last 24 months of receipts in descending date order.
2. You can select which book's transactions you'd like to view in the "Book" drop list. To filter to a specific Bank Account, select the bank account you'd like to view in the "Account" drop list. To filter to show just a specific status or statuses of transactions, select the status(es) you want in the "Filter" drop list.
3. To add a new journal entry, click the "Add" button at the bottom of the window, and enter your journal entry in the box that appears.
4. To edit a journal entry, find the journal entry you want to edit on the grid, and click on it so it is highlighted, and then click "Edit" at the bottom of the window.
5. To copy a journal entry, find the journal entry you want to copy on the grid, click on it so it is highlighted, and then click "Copy" at the bottom of the window.
6. To delete a journal entry, find the journal entry you want to delete on the grid, click on it so it is highlighted, and then click "Delete" at the bottom of the window. Only pending journal entries can be deleted.
7. Clicking Print will provide you with a variety of journal entry reports to preview, such as journal entries grouped by Vendor or Status, or you can print an ungrouped list of journal entries by clicking the "(default)" option. Click on the report you wish to view, then click "Select"