Process a journal entry
In a general journal, you enter the relevant information for the transaction such as the posting date, amount, and the main and offset accounts to post to. That's the minimum information that you need to enter. A ledger account is debited or credited, and then an offset account is selected.
You must have the following information to create a journal entry:
- Accounting date
- Ledger account
- Debit or credit amount
- Offset account (can be entered on the same line or multiple lines)
Use the Journal lines page to enter transactions within a journal. Select the Lines button on the General journal processing page to open the Journal lines page.
You can post transactions to the following accounts by using a general journal:
- Ledger - For transactions in a ledger account.
- Bank – If a bank account transaction is involved.
- Customer - For transactions to customers.
- Vendor - For posting to a vendor account. For example, when you record a vendor payment and specify Vendor as the Account type, posting occurs in the specified vendor account. At the same time, posting occurs automatically in the vendor summary account in the General ledger.
- Projects - To post to a specific project number.
- Fixed assets - To post to a specific asset number.
The information that you enter in a general journal is temporary and can be changed if it remains unposted within the journal. You can exit a journal without losing any information and then come back and post it later.
To enter a new general journal, there are two different ways to do this on the menu. There is a General journal processing workspace as well as General ledger > Journal entries > General journals and General ledger > Journal entries > Global general journals.
In the General journal processing workspace, you can enter a new general journal and view existing journals and directly go to the General journals page.
When you create a new journal as type Daily, for instance, the journal header consists of different tabs. The Posted check box is selected automatically after the journal has been posted. The General journal page filters journals by the Show field. You can select to display only open, all, or posted journals.
The General tab shows various information, such as description, journal name, posting layer, detail level, line limits, and whether the journal is for a reversing entry.
The Setup tab shows the type of account, control whether the Amounts include sales tax, and gives you an option to override the exchange rate with a fixed rate in case you are using multiple currencies. Set up the default offset account for an account using the Journal names page. By creating a default offset account, this field is populated automatically without specifying the account every time.
The Blocking tab shows if this journal has been blocked by an error, which will turn the Locked by system option on, or if it is blocked by another user. Alternatively, you can make the journal private for a user or group of users.
You can use the default financial dimensions in the Financial dimension tab. The history shows who has done any maintenance to the journal.
Finance detects the fiscal period when you specify the date on the journal line entry. If a period is closed or on hold, you'll get an error message saying you can't use the date in that period.
Watch this video to learn more about the journal header tabs and their properties.