Chart of accounts and journal entries
Record a manual journal entry
Post an adjustment, an accrual, an opening balance or a correction straight to the general ledger with a balanced multi-line journal entry.
3 min readLast updated
In this article
Most entries in your books are created for you: invoices, receipts, payments and stock movements post their own journal entries. Use a manual journal entry for everything else, such as month-end accruals, depreciation adjustments, opening balances, reclassifications between accounts, or the correction of an earlier mistake.
Before you start
The fiscal year of the entry's date must be open for your branch. See Set up fiscal years.
The accounts you need must exist as level-5 accounts in your branch's chart. See Manage the chart of accounts.
You need the permission to add journal entries. Without it, the New journal entry button does not appear.
Steps
Open Accounting › Transactions › Transactions and select New journal entry.
Set the Transaction date. It defaults to today. The entry is posted on this date, so the fiscal year of this date must be open.
Optional: enter a Note that explains the entry. The note is saved on every line and is what you will search for later.
On the first line, choose the Account and enter the amount in Debit or in Credit. A line takes one side only: enter a debit or a credit, not both.
Complete the second line the same way. The form starts with two lines, which is the minimum.
Select Add line for each further account. Use the delete icon at the end of a line to remove it, as long as two lines remain.
Check the Totals row. It shows Balanced when total debit equals total credit, or Out of balance by the difference.
Select Post entry. The button stays disabled until the entry is balanced.
A message confirms Journal entry posted with the batch number, and the form clears for the next entry. The batch number identifies the whole entry: use it to find the entry in the transactions list.
What happens next
Balances change at once. Each line updates its account and every parent account above it. The entry shows in reports, statements and the trial balance straight away.
The entry waits for approval. A manual entry is saved with the status Pending. A user with the approval permission reviews it under Transfer restrictions and approves or rejects it. Rejecting posts a reversing entry, so the amounts drop out of the balances again.
Year-end depends on it. A fiscal year cannot be closed while any of its manual entries are still pending.
Common questions
Can I edit or delete a posted entry? No. Ask an approver to reject it while it is still pending, which reverses it, or post a new entry that reverses the wrong one and then post the correct entry.
Why is an account missing from the list? The list shows only level-5 accounts of your branch. A grouping account or another branch's account cannot receive a posting. See Which accounts accept postings.
The entry was refused with fiscal_yar_not_active. The year of the Transaction date has no open fiscal year for your branch. Add or activate it, or correct the date.
How do I post the same amount from one account to another? Use Transfer between accounts. It builds the two lines for you and checks that the source account has enough balance.