About Journal Entries

This topic provides overview information for journal entries.

Entering Journal Transactions

Two or more transactions are typically entered to create a balanced entry, with one transaction entered as a debit (such as receiving a cash payment), and the second entered as a credit (such as recording miscellaneous income). The sum of the debit transactions equals the sum of the credit transactions. If each group of transactions is assigned the same reference, it is easily recognizable later that these transactions were entered at the same time.

Transactions must be entered into the journal as the first step in changing an account's balance. The next step is to post the journal to the ledger, at which time the account balances are updated. After a transaction has been posted to the ledger, you cannot change it. The only way to correct an incorrect entry is by entering a reversing entry.

You cannot directly delete a ledger transaction; however, you can enter a journal transaction for an opposite amount (and the same date as the original transaction), and then post that transaction to the ledger to cancel out the previous transaction.

System Journals

Service Management initially creates these system journals, which you cannot delete:

AP Dist: Accounts Payable Ledger Distribution
AR Dist: Accounts Receivable Ledger Distribution
BNK Dist: Banking Distribution
FS Distribution: Sales/Service Orders Distribution
General: General Journal
IC Distribution: Inventory Control Distribution
PO Distribution: Purchasing Distribution

Note:

The BNK Dist journal is created for all databases, although it is populated only by running the Currency Revaluation utility.
If you have deleted material transactions, any ledger or journal records that reference them will have their references cleared. If you try to view detail on a ledger or journal and the specific material transaction has been deleted, you will receive a message that the record is not available.

Read-Only Journals

The distribution journals are read-only from General Ledger. The General Journal and any user-defined journals are considered "writeable" from General Ledger. Transactions for the distribution journals are entered from the appropriate Service Management function. For example, after a payment is entered and posted through Accounts Payable, the transaction appears in the A/P Dist Journal. Transactions for the General Journal are entered through the General Ledger.

These functions are performed on read-only journals:

Enter text (to be associated with each transaction)
Compress journal by account & date
Post to General Ledger
Sequence reset (resequence transaction numbers)

You can also update unit codes for a journal transaction residing in a read-only journal.

These functions cannot be performed on read-only journals:

Add transactions
Delete transactions
Update transactions
Perform year end closing
Update journal title

Standard Journals

A standard journal may be set up for recurring transactions (such as rent, mortgage, or loan payments). When transactions are posted from the General or standard journals, there is an option available to delete all entries in the journal.

Do not delete recurring entries in the standard journals. The transactions are needed for the next period's posting. Recurring entries are usually the only entries in user-defined journals you would not delete.

The entries in the General Journal change from period to period and need to be deleted.