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 Multi-Book Ledger application for posting. Recurring journal entries are created in a subsystem of Multi-Book Ledger called Recurring Ledger, and have a system code of RL.

You can create different types of recurring journal entries:

  • Auto zero journal entries, where amounts or units are zeroed after the recurring entry is processed for the period

  • Non-auto zero journal entries, where the amounts or units remain constant

Non-auto zero entry example

Riverbend Corporation bought new workstation furniture for the entire company on the same date. All the furnishings are depreciated over the same length of time using the straight line depreciation method. However, whereas the General Ledger uses a five-year depreciation period, the tax ledger uses a seven-year depreciation period. Because the adjustment entry to the tax entry is always the same amount, they created a recurring journal entry to occur on a monthly basis for the same amount each month. This example shows their monthly depreciation entries:

Account Debit Credit
Corporate Depr - Furnishings 2000.00
Corporate Accum Depr Furnishings 2000.00

Auto zero entry example

Riverbend also has a policy of refunding its employees $0.30 per mile for the use of their personal vehicles for the business, but for tax purposes, they can only deduct $0.25 per mile. Every month, the controller has to adjust the mileage amount in the tax ledger. The amount is different each month, but the accounts are the same.

Account Debit Credit
Mileage expense $xxx.xx
Non-deductible employee expense $xxx.xx