What Is a Recurring Journal Entry?
A recurring journal entry is an entry that occurs more than once, such as a journal entry for a monthly rent payment, quarterly payroll tax, or semiannual real estate tax. Use recurring entries to decrease maintenance on journal entries that occur regularly.
Recurring journal entries are similar to regular journal entries; however, you must release and transfer recurring journal entries to the General Ledger application for posting. Recurring journal entries are actually created in a subsystem of General Ledger called Recurring Journal, and have a system code of RJ.
You can create different types of recurring journal entries:
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auto zero journal entries, where amounts or units are zeroed after the recurring entry is processed for the period
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non-auto zero journal entries, where the amounts or units remain constant
Non Auto Zero Entry Example
Each month LGE Corporation records depreciation for their office equipment. Because the entry is always the same amount, they created a recurring journal entry to occur on a monthly basis for the same amount each month. The following example shows one of their monthly depreciation entries.
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 101-55450 Corporate Depr - Equipment | 2000.00 | |
| 101-17250 Corporate Accum Depr Equipment | 2000.00 |
Auto Zero Entry Example
LGE also uses a recurring journal entry for their monthly payroll, which has different amounts each month. They created a monthly recurring journal entry with defined account numbers, and they enter the specific amounts each month for those accounts. The following example shows one of their monthly payroll entries.
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 101-51080 Corp Salaries and Wages | $xxx.xx | |
| 101-51450 Corp Fed Unemployment Expense | $xxx.xx | |
| 101-51415 Company Paid FICA Expense | $xxx.xx | |
| 101-23000 Corp Accr Payroll Clearing Account | $xxx.xx |