Finance and Accounting · Daily operations · 9 min read

Post, approve and reverse a manual journal entry

Type a balanced journal entry, preview it, post it (with approval if the journal type requires it) and correct it by reversal.

Before you begin

• The accounts you need exist and are active. Accounts maintained by customer or supplier records (the receivable and payable control accounts) are refused on a general journal.
• The posting date falls in an open period and after the company lock date.
• Permissions: journal.view to read; journal.post to create, edit and post; journal.prepare to submit for approval or withdraw; journal.approve to approve or reject; journal.reverse to reverse or reset to draft.

Steps

1. Open Finance > Accounting > Journal entries and press New journal.
2. Choose the Journal type. Only types that may be raised by hand are offered, for example General Journal (GJ).
3. Choose the Entry type (Miscellaneous, Adjustment, Accrual, Reversal, Opening balance, Reclassification, Intercompany, Tax adjustment or Custom).
4. Enter the Posting date. This decides the period.
5. Enter a Memo of up to 240 characters. It is required.
6. Optional: enter a Reference (up to 60 characters), Currency and Tags (up to 12). For a foreign currency the system converts at the approved rate for the posting date; if there is no approved rate the entry is refused.
7. On the lines grid, add at least two lines. For each line choose the Account, optionally the Partner and Description, any dimensions, and enter either a Debit or a Credit, never both.
8. To spread one line across values, choose Split by % and enter shares that total 100%.
9. Check the totals. The Balanced badge shows when debits equal credits to the fils.
10. Press Preview. The dialog lists anything that would stop the entry and the effect on each account. Nothing is posted.
11. Press Save to keep a draft, or Post Entry to post it.

If the journal type needs approval

1. The preparer saves the entry and presses Submit for approval. The state becomes Submitted.
2. A different user with journal.approve opens it and presses Approve (or Reject with a note, which returns it for revision).
3. A user with journal.post presses Post Entry.

Whoever prepares a journal does not approve it.

What happens next

The entry gets its number from the journal type's own sequence (for example GJ-000087) and its state becomes Posted. Its lines appear on Finance > Accounting > Journal items and the trial balance moves by the entry amount. The History shows who posted it and when.

Worked example. Reclassify AED 1,050.00 of office supplies paid from the bank: debit Office Supplies 1,050.00 and credit Cash and bank 1,050.00. The trial balance total moves by 1,050.00.

Correct a posted entry

A posted entry cannot be edited. Open it and press Reverse, choose the Reversal date (not before the original posting date, in an open period) and give a Reason. The system posts a new entry named "Reversal of GJ-000087: reason" with opposite lines and the same dimensions. The original shows Reversed. Pressing Reverse again returns the same reversal.

To retype the entry, press Reset to draft instead. The original is reversed and a new draft with the same lines opens.

Automatic reversal

For accruals, set Auto-reverse on to a date after the posting date. On posting, a reversal dated that day is posted too, and the two entries are linked by the Reversal and Reverses buttons.

Good to know

• Editing a draft raises its revision. If someone else saved first, you see that your edit was overtaken and must reload.
• A draft is checked again when posted; if its account was blocked in the meantime, posting is refused.
• Entries written by a document cannot be reversed or reset here. Correct the document and its journal follows.
• Other helpers: Duplicate, Duplicate without amounts, Templates (save the lines for reuse), Import lines from a CSV file (fix rows flagged as errors first) and attachments (drag a file onto Attachments).
• Postings into a soft-closed period need the period.adjust permission. See Close a month and a year.
• Messages you may meet are listed in Finance troubleshooting.