What are Journals and Transactions?
A journal is used to post a number of ledger transactions to the accounts in Financials. In its simplest form, a single ledger transaction posts either a debit or credit amount to a selected account, in an accounting period.
A journal is used to post different types of transaction: sales invoices, purchase invoices, cash receipts, cash payments, expenses, asset or liability movements, depreciation, to name but a few.
Each ledger transaction contains a large number of predefined fields of information. In addition, it can contain several user defined description and date fields.
Double Entry Journals
SunSystems Financials ensures that your ledger remains in balance at all times. It does this by ensuring that every journal balances. For a journal to balance, the total of the debit transaction amounts for an accounting period must equal the total of the credit transaction amounts for the same period.
This means that a journal must contain at least two ledger transactions.
In a multi-currency environment, up to four currency values can be entered on each journal transaction: base currency, transaction currency, second base/reporting currency, and fourth currency. The transaction can also contain a memo value.
The base currency values must always balance before a journal can be posted. The posting rules set for the business unit determine which of the other currency values must also balance. SunSystems can force a journal to balance by automatically posting a balancing amount to a selected account.