Entering journals in home and business 2015

TaniaW
TaniaW Member Posts: 5
Is there a work around to entering a general journal in home and business version 2015? Is it possible?

Comments

  • John Graetz
    John Graetz Member Posts: 1,651 ✭✭✭
    edited July 2020
    Hi Tania.  It really depends on the type of transaction that you want to do.  Many times it is much simpler to do a general journal.  If the transaction represents something going through your bank account or Undeposited Funds,then you could use the "write cheque" function, or do a "sales receipt".  If you are doing an adjustment, then a General Journal is probably the only way to go.  What is the issue that you are facing that makes you want to avoid using a general journal?  Knowing that, might result in a different answer.  John L G
  • TaniaW
    TaniaW Member Posts: 5
    edited October 2015
    I want to enter a general journal but the version the accountant is using does not give the option to enter a general journal - trying to work out the best way to get the adjustments in
  • gazza73
    gazza73 Accredited Partner Posts: 802 Accredited Partner Accredited Partner
    edited December 2016
    Tania....

    What program and version is your Accountant actually using,  that fails to have a Journal capability?   That seems strange to me, as Accountants just LOVE journal entries! (So do I.... sorry!)

    Gary

  • John Graetz
    John Graetz Member Posts: 1,651 ✭✭✭
    edited December 2016
    Hi Tania.  Like Gary says - where would we be without being able to do journals?  Quite frankly, I don't know how this feature could be disabled or missing.  However, I have a solution for you which will mimic what a general journal will do.  You just need to think slightly differently to carry this out, but the result will end up being exactly the same.  So here goes.

    1.  Create a new bank account and call it say Internal Transfers.  This bank account will have entries in it which will net each other off, and therefore, it will never have a balance other than zero.  You will use the feature Write Cheques to carry this out.

    2.  Let's say you incorrectly recorded a coffee purchase to your Hospitality Account - Office Expenses:Refreshments for $10 and incorrectly recorded it with a GST code of NCG instead of NCF.  You have only discovered this after you have say lodged your BAS.  You now need to reverse this transaction and use the correct code.

    3.Commence the Write Cheques procedure and use any supplier name - perhaps even a new name called Journal.  You will now enter two compensating transactions to the appropriate General Ledger Account/s.  In this case we are going to use the Refreshments account.  The cheque will have a value of zero.

    4.  In the first line, use the Refreshments account, a GST code of NCG and a negative amount for the reversal -$10.  The GST amount will show as a negative also -$0.91.  This is reversing the original incorrect recording.

    5.  On the next line, again use the ?refreshments Office Expenses:Refreshments? account and this time enter it is you would normally do, using an amount of ?$10 ?and a ?GST ?code of ?NCF.  ?Then complete the transaction by entering it as you normally would.

    6.  If you want to print out the detail as a record of what you have done, you will end up with a report just like it was recorded as a journal, as follows:

    7.  Re-open the cheque.  Then go to ?Reports?, go down to the bottom of the list to ?Transaction Journal? and click on it, then accept the defaults for the report and click ?OK.  ?You will now be presented with a report with all of the detail provided.  Adjust the tabs sizes by increasing or decreasing them to see all of the info and then print it off in landscape.

    You can do this for any type of adjusting entry that you need to do, remembering that one line will be a positive and the other line a negative.  You can also use this same procedure to put through adjustments for say income transactions as well, but this time the negative and positive values will be the other way around.  In a similar manner, you can use the same procedure for transactions using Asset and Liability accounts.  If you do want to make adjustments involving Asset and Liability accounts, you might need to experiment to ensure that you get the individual components the correct way around.

    I hope that this might help you.

    John L G


  • Reckon FAQs
    Reckon FAQs Reckon Staff Posts: 357 Reckon Staff
    edited March 2017
    Hi Tania,

    Thanks for asking the Reckon Community.

    The Reckon Accounts Personal range which includes Home & Business is a "cashbook" style accounting system.  It is a cash basis only system and does not have a "general journal" function.

    If your activities require extensive use of General Journals you should look at the Reckon accounts Business range that has this functionality.  View more information here.  

    Otherwise take John's suggestions into consideration.

    Some "general journal" transactions could also be done through accounts in Property & Debt.


    regards,
    John