General Ledger Journal Input

Modified on Thu, 15 Feb at 12:44 AM

This article outlines the steps on how to add a General Ledger Journal.

General Ledger journals are used to update your Chart of Accounts by moving amounts from one general ledger account to another. This is also useful for where you have incorrectly entered GST on a payment voucher that has been reconciled and cannot be reversed.

LawMaster assigns each accepted journal entry an audit number for inclusion in the audit report when it is generated.

Step-by-step guide

Journals can be entered from Main Menu > Accounting > General Ledgers > Journals > Input Journals OR Menu bar > Transactions > General Ledger Journal Input.

The general ledger journal input screen displays with some fields automatically populated.

Field	Description
Ledger	Select the ledger number for the company the journal is to be entered against e.g. Ledger 1
Transaction Type	The default is JRNL for a general ledger journal, however if you are entering a journal to the GST Control accounts e.g. GST Received on Bills Raised OR GST Paid on Expenses then the Transaction Type needs to be GST.
Year	Current or Previous. You are only able to add journals for the current or previous financial years
Period	Select the accounting period number 1–12 where e.g. period 1 = July; period 7 = January.
Date	This field is automatically populated with the current date. To change the date, click the arrow and select from the date picker or enter the date in dd/mm/yyyy format.
Account No.	Click the ellipsis to allow you to search and select the account number for the first transaction of your journal i.e. as per the example above 1214065 Note: if you know the account number you can enter it directly in the field.
Current Year Bal.	Read-only field, automatically populated.
Previous Year Bal.	Read-only field, automatically populated.
Reference	A reference for your journal.
Gross Amount	Enter the transaction amount i.e. DR $100.00 for the first side of the transaction.
GST Status	The system will automatically post the GST component of a General Ledger transaction based on the GST Status selection: Taxable Income GST Free Income Taxable Expense GST Free Expense No GST
Narrative	Enter a description for the transaction. Note: Pressing F3 on your keyboard updates this field with the previous transaction’s narrative.

When you have completed the fields, Click Add Transaction located at the bottom left hand side of the screen. If there are no invalid entries, the transaction is added to the grid as a line item for review but is not yet finalised.

Note: LawMaster highlights any invalid form entries with a red exclamation mark. Hover your mouse over the exclamation mark to see an explanation. Correct any invalid entries and retry.

LawMaster resets the form ready to accept the next line entry for your journal i.e. the second side of the journal.

An example of a journal:

GST was incorrectly included on a GST exempt travel expense.
Need to correct for the GST (i.e remove it)
Need to move GST from the GST Paid on Expenses account to the Travel Expense account, so the full amount of the expense is recorded in the Travel Expense account

To do this I will be debiting my expense account and crediting the GST Paid on Purchases i.e.

Note: As I am entering a journal to the GST Paid on Purchased general ledger, I need to change the Transaction Type to GST (refer above).

DR	Travel	GL 112455	$100.00
CR	GST Paid on Purchases	GL 214065	-$100.00

Once you have added the first side of the journal; you need to enter the second side of the journal entry or other entries if multiple lines. Ensure that you select Add Transaction after completing the above steps, so that each line appears in the transaction grid.

If you have entered an incorrect item, you are able to delete this item from the transaction grid, individually or in bulk, from the delete option in the context menu.

Once you have finished entering all transactions for your journal, ensure that the net amount equals zero as shown at the bottom of the screen. To accept your journal you need to select either 'Apply' or 'OK'.

Click 'Apply' to finalise and clear the grid. The form remains open so you can add more transactions if required.

Click 'OK' to finalise and close the form.

Click Cancel to discard transactions that are not finalised (where you have not clicked 'OK' or 'Apply'). If you have any unfinalised items, LawMaster displays a warning advising you will lose the unfinalised entries. Click 'Yes' to continue to cancel and 'No' to keep the items and finalise your journal.

Note: The 'Apply' and 'OK' buttons only enable if there is at least one transaction in the transactions grid. You must click 'OK' or 'Apply' to save your transactions.

LawMaster allocates the journal number only after saving the transactions.