The Journal

The Journal

In this topic, you will be introduced to the general journal, a document where transactions are recorded. The journal is an industry accepted document to place transactions. The goal of this activity is for you to be able to:

• Properly setup the general journal with;
  • page number
  • date
  • month
• Properly record transactions into the general journal
• Record an opening entry

Content

Review – Debt and Credit Accounts

Debit Accounts	Credit Accounts
Assets	Liabilities
Drawings	Capital
Expenses	Revenue

• A journal is a book in which the accounting entries for all transactions are first recorded before they are recorded in the ledger.

Features of the Journal

• At the top there needs to be a page number for each journal page
• Page numbers are sequential
• Transactions for each year must be indicated with the year at the top of the date section at the beginning of each year
• Each transaction must begin with a date
• If multiple transactions occur in a month, the month only needs to be written on the 1st transaction of the month
• Debits must be listed first
• Credits are indented, and placed after the debits
• All account names must begin with a capital letter
• A description of each transaction must occur after each journal entry
• Skip a line between each transaction

The Opening Entry

• If a business is starting up, you must begin the journal with an opening entry
• An opening entry is simply a journal entry that lists all the beginning account balances for the business
• These balances can be found on the beginning balance sheet for the company
• Be sure that you place the balances in the correct debit and credit sections
• The description for the opening entry will simply be “opening entry”