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General Journal Entries Overview
In MYOB Accounting Plus, General Journal entries are transactions you can use to track business activity that you wouldn’t want to track with other kinds of transactions, such as sales or purchases. Usually, General Journal entries are used for special situations only, such as when you need to record depreciation of your company’s assets, or when you need to enter year-end adjustments to your financial records.
Transaction information from General Journal entries are stored in the General Journal, so your other business records, such as your sales figures, aren’t directly affected by these transactions.
Step 1: Identify the purpose for the transaction
Step 2: Enter the debits and credits for the transaction
Step 3: Choose what you want to do with the transaction
When you open the General Journal Entry window, the General Journal number and transaction date will be filled in for you automatically. These entries—called default entries in Accounting Plus—can be changed if necessary, but in most instances, you’ll probably want to keep the default entries.
If you chose to use 13 accounting periods in your fiscal year, Accounting Plus 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, 2000, enter *9/9/00. (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.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 Accounting Plus 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.
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.
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)
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:
Your company’s vehicles and equipment deteriorate and lose value each year. Part of the cost of vehicles and equipment can be allocated as an expense to your company each year you benefit from its use. The allocation of the cost of a piece of equipment over its useful life is called depreciation. While Accounting Plus doesn’t calculate depreciation automatically, you can quickly record your depreciation figures using a General Journal entry.
If, for example, you have two accounts, Company Van, numbered 1-4200, and Computer Equipment, numbered 1-4300. You’ll create two new asset accounts, one called Company Van–Accumulated Depreciation, numbered 1-4201, and another called Computer Equipment–Accumulated Depreciation, numbered 1-4301. You’ll also create an expense account called Depreciation Expense. The asset accounts will always have a negative balance to show a reduction in the value of the depreciable assets.
There are several methods of depreciation, which can be used to lessen your company's tax liability. Consult your accountant to see whether you should be depreciating vehicles and equipment and, if you should, which method is best for you. Also, depreciation must be reported on a periodic basis. Many businesses depreciate assets on a monthly or quarterly basis; consult your accountant for advice about timing depreciation transactions for your company.
Since depreciation is reported on a periodic basis, you may want to create a recurring template for this purpose.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
If you plan to record the same General Journal entry on a regular basis, you may want to consider creating a recurring General Journal template. When you create a recurring General Journal template, the transaction information is saved in a separate “holding area” where you can retrieve the transaction as many times as you want in the future. You can change the information on a recurring template as needed. Until you record them, recurring General Journal templates have no effect on your financial records.
You can remove a recurring template whether your transactions are changeable or unchangeable. The transaction is removed from your list of recurring templates only. Any transactions you’ve already recorded using a recurring templates you remove won’t be affected.
You can choose to record recurring General Journal templates using the To Do List window; simply mark the Action column to indicate which templates you wish to record. Keep in mind that the transactions will be recorded automatically. If you need to review or change any parts of the transactions before they’re recorded, click the zoom arrow to open the transaction in the General Journal Entry window.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
To create a recurring General Journal template
To find a recurring General Journal template
To display a list of recurring General Journal templates (and record them, if you wish)
To change a recurring General Journal template’s name or frequency
To change a recurring General Journal template’s line items and other information
After you record a General Journal entry, you'll probably want to view the transaction again in the future, and there may be times when you need to change, remove and reverse a transaction you’ve entered into the MYOB system.
If your data file is changeable, that is, if in the Security view of the Preferences window you haven’t marked the selection, Transactions CAN’T be changed; They must be reversed, you are able to edit and remove transactions. When this is the case, you can quickly change and remove the effects of such a transaction from your records.
If your data file is unchangeable, that is, if in the Security view of the Preferences window you have marked the selection, Transactions CAN’T be changed; They must be reversed, you are able to reverse transactions. When this is the case, you can quickly remove the effects of the transaction from your records by reversing the transaction. Then, if you want, you can enter a new, correct transaction to replace the transaction you reversed. For more information see What are changeable and unchangeable transactions? For more information about selecting Preferences, see Customizing work preferences.
Click below for the step-by-step procedure:
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General Journal Entries Overview