Another name for the place where all company transactions are initially recorded is the “book of original entry.”
Journals can be used for any kind of regular record-keeping, including keeping track of company records, monitoring investments, making budgets, managing daily finances like receipts and expenses (including profit and loss information), and so on.
How Do People Use Journals?
Some businesses use sophisticated computerized accounting systems, while others may still rely on time-consuming and error-prone manual methods. Journals are still necessary for recording various types of business activities.
When anything monetary changes hands, the bookkeeper makes a journal entry to reflect the change.
A financial transaction’s accounting entry will record the transaction date, the accounts affected, the dollar amounts involved, and a brief explanation for the transaction.
Maintaining a journal on a regular basis is also crucial for accounting reasons because it records the receipts and payments made by your business.
Journal Categories
Companies often maintain 7 distinct accounting journals as part of double-entry bookkeeping. This is done to better categorize the various types of transactions into the appropriate journals.
In this way, the impact of the transactions may be examined more easily than if they were documented in a single diary.
There are seven distinct kinds of accounting journals.
Invest in a Journal
All cash and credit purchases of goods and stock are recorded in the purchase journal. Therefore, only transactions related to merchandise or inventory should be recorded in this kind of diary, such as the purchase of assets on credit.
This diary should only be used to record purchases made with credit and not cash for items or inventories.
Log of Purchase Cancellations
This journal is where items purchased on credit are recorded whenever they are returned. Keep in mind that you can’t record cash-purchased inventory returns in this notebook.
Keeping a Cash Receipts Book
All money received in exchange for goods or services sold should be noted in a cash receipts log.
Debtors, earnings, and incoming loans are just some of the possible funding options. Customer payments and bank deposits would be recorded here.
Record of Money Paid Out
All cash payments to debtors should be recorded in the cash disbursements log. Payroll, bills from vendors, loan interest, and mortgages are all examples of things that fall under this category.
You may also hear this book referred to as the “cash payments journal” or the “cash disbursements journal.” Keep in mind that some businesses maintain separate notebooks for each distinct area of business expenses.
Reports on Sales
All cash and credit purchases are recorded here. Instead of recording cash sales in this journal, they should be documented in the Cash Receipts Journal.
Log of Refunds and Exchanges
All product and stock that is returned for a credit is noted in this journal. In addition, the Purchase Returns Journal should be used instead of this one if the items were paid for with cash and are now being returned for credit.
Magazine Articles
All entries that do not fall into one of the six categories described above should be recorded in the general journal. Credit-based asset purchases are a type of financial transaction that could be documented here.
In order to establish a complete accounting system for recording transactions in double-entry bookkeeping, we also enter information regarding credits and debits here.
This is the format for a basic entry in a generic journal:
A Journal Is Not a Ledger
In bookkeeping, both journals and ledgers are helpful, but they do distinct things. A journal is the primary document of record for any business transaction.
On the other side, the results of the transactions are recorded in a ledger for future reference. Prior to being transferred to the ledger, all monetary transactions must first be documented in the diary.
Some key differences between a journal and a ledger are highlighted below.
Last Words
The accounting journal is a crucial record-keeping device. Despite its apparent simplicity, this method of documentation can prove invaluable to the success of your company.
Journals are the books used by firms to record and keep track of their financial dealings. There is a wealth of information about a company’s operations, profitability, and cash flow that can be gleaned from these documents.
To avoid any complications when keeping your books, just keep these points in mind and always use journals correctly.
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