Posting Manual Journal Entry

You are implementing SAP Business One at a new customer site.

The accountant of the company would like to enter transactions manually for small expenses. She asks you how to record these transactions in the system.

You show her the manual journal entries.

In SAP Business One, a journal entry is automatically posted from many documents, such as A/R and A/P invoices.

Additionally, you can manually post a journal entry directly to a G/L account or to a business partner sub-ledger account.

All journal entries are posted to one file in SAP Business One - the Journal Entries file.

You can set various defaults for journal entries.

You can also change some document settings for an individual journal entry.

All journal entries refer to the type and number of the origin document since frequently journal entries are created automatically from another document.

For example, IN is used for customer invoices.

The origin documents of manual journal entries are the journal entries themselves. For this reason, they refer to themselves and are of type JE (which is standard for journal entry).

Most journal entries refer to other document types (for example PU for AP invoices).

The Journal Entry window is found in the Financials module.

The window for entering journal entries is divided into three areas: document header data, expanded editing mode for an item, and the items table.

You can show or hide the expanded editing mode. The mode always refers to the row that is currently selected and displays all the item fields for you to enter the relevant data.

Using Form Settings, you can define which columns display in the line items table.

Note that you can also import rows of journal entries from excel by choosing the Import from Excel button.

To learn more please refer to the Import from Excel course.

You can enter multiple lines with debit or credit amounts. In every line you add SAP Business One will recommend a balancing amount which you can update.

When entering manual journal entries, in each line, place the cursor in the G/L Acct/BP Code field and press Tab to display the accounts list, or CTRL + Tab to display the Business Partners Master Data list. Alternatively, you can use the context menu to open the list of accounts or list of business partners.

Note that you can search for an account or a business partner using the G/L Acct/BP Name field.

If you know the first character of the customer code or name, specify it, followed by an asterisk. Then, press CTL + Tab to produce a list of all customer codes starting with this character.

If you know a partial customer code or name, place an asterisks (*)first and then the partial code or name. Then press CTL + Tab to display a list of all records that contain the string you entered.

The same goes for an account but with pressing Tab to display the accounts list.

• Users can make input errors. As a result, the journal entry created may contain incorrect information. To provide an audit of the correction, the user must first reverse the journal entry in error, and then capture the document correctly.
• To cancel a manual journal entry choose Cancel from the Data menu or directly from the context menu of the journal entry.
• You can specify whether reversal transactions are performed:
  • As standard reverse transactions, or
  • As reverse transactions with negative amounts
• The method you choose also determines the automatic reversal journal entry created for canceled marketing documents.

• The standard reverse transaction causes the system to post the debit in error as a credit and the credit in error as a debit. This corrects the balance of the accounts. However, the standard reverse transaction causes an additional increase in the totals on the debit and credit sides, which might be misleading.
• On the left side of the image you can see an example of a journal entry with error and the corresponding reversal entry. On the right you can see the effect of the reversal entry on the balance of account A. The total balance is cleared however the debit side was not affected and the credit side is increased.

The reverse transaction with negative amounts causes the system to post the debit in error as a negative debit and the credit in error as a negative credit. This not only corrects the balance of the accounts but also the totals. As you can see in the image in the account balance table.

It depends on the country whether standard reverse transactions or reverse transactions with negative amounts are required.

You can set which type of reversal is used in the Company Details window in the System Initialization menu area of the Administration module. On the Basic Initialization tab, you can select the Allow Negative Amounts for Reversal Transaction Posting field to switch on the reverse transaction with negative amounts. Otherwise, the system will use the standard reverse transaction.

This setting is relevant for both automatic (e.g. A/R Invoice) and manual journal entries.

When entering a manual journal entry, you can choose the Reverse checkbox. This enables you to create a reversal transaction for the current journal entry and define the date on which the reversal transaction should be created.

An example for using this option could be in cases where the company needs to issue a period reporting and have some revenue deferrals.

When the reverse date of the transaction arrives, the Reverse Transactions window appears on log-in.

Alternatively, you can open the Reverse Transactions window from the Financial module.

You execute the reverse transaction by choosing the Execute button.

As a result, new transaction is created. The Remarks field of this transaction displays the text (Reversal) and the number of the original transaction. The Reverse option is disabled.

In the original transaction, the Reverse option is not visible, and the word Canceled indicates that the transaction was canceled.

Note!

Reverse transactions can be posted only if the reverse date has already arrived, and

You can reverse each journal entry only once.

Here are some key points to take away:

• All journal entries are posted to the Journal Entries file. Including automatic journal entries posted from documents, such as A/R and A/P invoices and manually posted journal entries.
• When entering manual journal entries, in the G/L Acct/BP Code field press Tab to display the accounts list. Or CTL + Tab to display the Business Partners Master Data list. Remember that you can enter the list of accounts or business partners from the context menu as well.
• Depending on your country standards, you can specify whether reversal transactions are performed as standard reverse transactions or as reverse transactions with negative amounts
• The scheduled reversal is done by entering a future date for cancellation in the journal entry. The cancellation transaction can be defined to prompt automatically.