How to Add General Journal

The General Journal Entry feature enables you to manually record accounting transactions that require direct debits and credits to your Chart of Accounts, providing essential flexibility for adjustments, accruals, reclassifications, corrections, and period-end entries that cannot be processed through standard transaction workflows. General journals are fundamental accounting tools used for depreciation entries, expense accruals, prepayment amortisations, error corrections, and complex transactions requiring multiple account allocations.

Exacc's journal entry interface follows double-entry bookkeeping principles requiring that total debits equal total credits before posting, ensuring accounting equation integrity and preventing unbalanced entries from corrupting your financial records. The system provides header fields for transaction dates, references, and descriptions alongside line-level entry capabilities allowing you to debit and credit multiple accounts within a single journal entry, with support for line-level descriptions, GST codes, and tracking categories when applicable.

Journal entries can be saved as drafts for review and approval before posting, preventing premature impact on financial statements whilst allowing collaborative verification of complex entries. Once posted, journals immediately update affected account balances, appear in transaction listings and financial reports, and become part of your permanent accounting records subject to audit trail requirements. The system supports document attachments enabling you to link supporting calculations, source documents, approvals, or explanatory notes directly to journal entries for complete audit trails.

Want to learn the exact steps to create accurate general journal entries? Follow our guide below for a detailed walkthrough of the journal entry process.