Journal entries

The journal is every entry in your books, in the order it was posted - the automatic ones and the ones you write yourself.

Finding an entry

Books → Accounting → Journal. Filter by date, account, source or event type, or search. The list pages through the whole journal rather than stopping at a fixed number of rows, so an old entry is reachable without exporting anything.

Each row expands to show its lines. Click through to the entry’s own page for a permanent link you can send to your accountant.

System entries and manual entries

Most entries are system entries - posted by an invoice, a payment, an expense, a bill. They carry the document that produced them and link back to it.

Manual entries are the ones you write. Filter to them when you want to see only what a human decided, which is usually what an accountant asks for first.

Writing one

New entry opens the workbench. Pick a date, add lines - up to 100 - and give each an account and either a debit or a credit. The entry will not post until debits equal credits - the running difference sits at the bottom of the form so you can see how far out you are.

Give it a description that will still make sense in a year. “Reclass Q3 fuel” is useful; “adjustment” is not.

Each line can carry its own description too - what that line is for: “Diesel, crew 2”, “Q3 depreciation, mower fleet”. It is optional. It shows beside the line in the account register, the general ledger and every export, and the Journal’s search finds it once you type three characters.

Write a manual entry for things no document covers: depreciation, an owner draw or contribution, a reclassification between accounts, an accrual your accountant asks for. Do not write one to fix an invoice - fix the invoice, and let it repost.

Reversing

Manual entries can be reversed. A reversal is a new entry with the signs flipped, dated when you reverse it, linked to the original - not an edit, and not a deletion. Both remain in the journal.

System entries are not reversed by hand. Change the document instead: void the bill, edit the invoice, delete the expense, and the ledger follows. The reversal a void or a delete posts is dated on the entry it undoes, so the correction lands in the period it corrects - not in the month someone noticed. Moving an expense to another date does the same: the old posting comes out of the old month.

Reference, entry type and attachments

Three things an accountant expects on a manual entry, all set when it posts (the entry row itself is append-only):

• Reference - a workpaper id, a check number, an invoice. Free text, and the Journal’s search finds it.
• Entry type - Standard, Adjusting or Reclass, never both of the last two: accountants keep adjusting entries and reclassifications as separate lists. Adjusting flags a period-end accrual, deferral, depreciation or correction; Reclass marks an entry that moves an amount already posted to the account it belongs in (see below). Each has its own Journal filter (Adjusting only, Reclass only) and badge, and the year-end package lists each as its own file beside the journal: adjusting-entries-<year>.csv and reclass-entries-<year>.csv. A recurring schedule can post each occurrence as either, so a monthly accrual is one every month.
• Attachments - a PDF or image pinned beside the entry: the payroll register, the depreciation schedule, the workpaper. Add them in the editor’s rail before posting, or on the entry page afterwards (with the same permission that posts entries).

A reversal inherits the reference, the entry type and each line’s description and job, customer and vendor - it is the same workpaper, backed out - and links to the original, where the files live.

Reclassifying a posting

Fuel that was really materials, a repair that belonged to equipment: the original posting stays in the journal, and a Reclass entry moves the money to where it belongs.

Start from what is wrong rather than from a blank entry:

• An account register (open any account under Books → Accounting): tick the lines to move - up to 40 at once - and choose Reclassify, or use one row’s own Reclassify.
• An entry’s page: each line has its own Reclassify.

The editor opens as a Reclass entry, already filled in:

• One line per posting you picked, backing it out of its account. The account and side are fixed - the line is undoing that posting - but the amount can go down, to move only part of it. Its description names the entry it came from, with a Moved from JE-0123 link.
• Lines that post it back, with the account left for you to choose. The job, customer and vendor tags on the moved postings come along, so job costing and vendor spend move with the money.
• The date of the latest posting if its period is still open, today otherwise.

Once it posts, the original entry’s page shows Reclassified by JE-0456 under each line it moved, and the register marks those rows. Moving a posting that has already been reclassified asks you to look twice first - a warning, not a block, because moving it in parts is legitimate.

When the posting came from a document - an expense, a vendor bill, a bank transaction - you have a choice to make. Editing the document changes it everywhere, reports and job costing included. A reclass changes the books only.

Accounts tied out elsewhere cannot be reclassified: bank and credit card accounts, Cash, Undeposited Funds, the clearing accounts (Stripe Clearing, Payments in Transit, Plaid Ledger), Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Customer Deposits and Sales Tax Payable. Each is reconciled against a bank feed, a subledger or a payout, and a journal entry moving money in or out would break that tie. Fix the invoice, the bill or the bank transaction instead.

Parent accounts. Postings sitting on a parent account - 5100 Fuel, say, before you added 5110 Diesel under it - can be moved down into its sub-accounts. A reclass is the one entry allowed to post to a parent or an inactive account, and only to take that account’s own balance toward zero, never past it - not on its date, and not on any later date. So a reclass dated back can’t take what a later one already moved, and two sent at the same moment can’t both take the same balance.

Related

• The general ledger
• Closing the books
• Chart of accounts