Creating General Journal entries

General Journal Entries Overview> Creating General Journal Entries

When you open the Record Journal Entry window, the General Journal number and transaction date will be filled in for you automatically. These entries-called default entries in AccountEdge-can be changed if necessary, but in most instances, you'll probably want to keep the default entries.

Entering transactions in the 13th period
If you chose to use 13 accounting periods in your fiscal year, MYOB AccountEdge still divides your fiscal year into 12 calendar months. The 13th period doesn't follow the 12 months chronologically; instead, you can use any date you want to enter transactions in the 13th period. To do so, however, you must enter transaction dates a little differently than you're accustomed to.

To enter a transaction for the 13th period, enter an asterisk (*) in the Date field before you enter the transaction's actual date. For example, if you want to place a transaction in the 13th period and want to indicate that the transaction was an adjustment for a transaction you originally entered on September 9, 2001, enter *9/9/01. (If you simply want to place a transaction in the 13th period and the actual date doesn't matter, you can enter whatever date you want following the asterisk). Regardless of the date you enter after the asterisk, that month's accounting records won't be affected by the entry.

Transactions for the 13th period can be entered in the following windows:

Record Journal Entry

Spend Money

Receive Money

Prepare Bank Deposit

Bank Register (Spend Money and Receive Money transactions)

Transfer Inventory

Count Inventory

Identify the purpose of the transaction

The first step in the process of creating a General Journal entry is to identify the purpose of the transaction by entering your comment in the Memo field. By doing this, you'll be able to find and comprehend the nature of the transaction much more easily in the future. Your comment should be short but detailed, so you can differentiate the transaction from other, similar transactions. For example, you might enter "Depreciation for July" or "Reversing entry for GJ000100."

If you use the AccountEdge Multicurrency feature and you want this transaction to be in a currency other than your home currency, you'll click the Currency button, located to the right of the Memo field, to display the Exchange Rate window. If you click the arrow next to the Currency field, you can choose the currency you want from the list of currencies that appears. For more information, see Multicurrency Overview.

Enter debits and credits

The second step in the process of creating a General Journal entry is to select the accounts that are affected by the transaction, and enter the amounts by which these accounts have been changed.

Each row of information you enter on a General Journal entry is called a line item. You can enter as many line items for an entry as you want, but you must have at least two line items-a debit entry and a credit entry to offset it. When you've finished entering debits and credits for the General Journal entry, the Out of Balance field should be blank. When it is, you're ready to record the transaction.

Assigning line items to jobs

You can assign line items of a General Journal entry to jobs by entering a job number in the Job column. You can, if you wish, assign a line entry to more that one job. For example, assume you want to record the depreciation of your equipment, but you want to assign $100 of the depreciation to job 12 and $200 to job 43. In the first line item of the transaction, enter the account you use to track depreciation, $100 in the Credit field and 12 in the Job field. In the second line item of the transaction, enter the depreciation account again, $200 in the Credit field and 43 in the Job field.

Click below for the step-by-step procedure:

Identify the purpose for the transaction (Step 1 of 3)

Enter the debits and credits for the transaction (Step 2 of 3)

Choose what you want to do with the transaction (Step 3 of 3)

To assign a line item on a Record Journal entry to more than one job

General Journal Entries Overview - Creating General Journal Entries

Keyword: thirteenth