Make General Journal Entries

A general journal entry moves money between accounts directly, with no invoice, bill or cheque behind it. You use it for the entries only a bookkeeper or accountant makes: month-end accruals and prepayments, depreciation, owner's draws and contributions, reclassifying an amount that went to the wrong account, and corrections. Every entry has at least two lines, and the debits must equal the credits before SeroBooks lets you save it.

Everything you post here lands in the General Ledger, the Trial Balance and the financial statements the moment it is saved.

Opening the form

• Company ▸ Make General Journal Entries… opens a blank General Entry form over the Home Page, as in QuickBooks. Save & Close or Esc takes you back to the Home Page; the General Journal Entries list is not opened. Save & New gives you a blank entry in the same place.
• Reports ▸ Accountant & Taxes ▸ Journal opens the list of entries (see The General Journal Entries list); its New Journal button opens the same blank form on top of the list, and Esc from the form takes you back to the list.
• In SeroBooks, Ctrl+Shift+G opens the Journal list from anywhere, and Go To / Look Up (Ctrl+K) finds it by typing "journal".

The menu item only appears if your role can open the journal. Opening a new form also asks for the Post Journal Entry right (see Permissions).

Post a journal entry, step by step

1. Open Company ▸ Make General Journal Entries….
2. Check the Date. It starts at today. Type a date or use the shortcuts described in Entering data.
3. Leave Entry No. blank to have SeroBooks number the entry, or type your own number.
4. Type a Memo that says why the entry exists. The next person reading the books will need it.
5. Tick Adjusting if this is a period-end adjustment, and tick the Accrual box if the entry should undo itself on the first of next month.
6. On line 1, click the Account field, type part of the account name or number and pick it from the list under the field. Enter the amount in Debit or Credit.
7. On line 2, pick the second account. Because this line has no amount yet, SeroBooks fills in whatever keeps the entry in balance, on the opposite side.
8. Add more lines with Add line if you need them, and fill in Memo, Name and Class on any line that needs them.
9. Watch the bar at the bottom of the window. When it shows Balanced, click Save & Close (or Save & New to start another entry straight away).

SeroBooks shows Journal entry posted — $1,250.00 each side. and closes the form.

The header fields

The lines

The line grid follows the QuickBooks Desktop column order: Account, Debit, Credit, Memo, Name, then Class.

Two buttons sit at the end of every line:

• The scales button, Put the difference on this line, enters the amount the entry is out by on this line, on whichever side balances it. It is greyed out when the entry already balances.
• The x button, Remove this line, deletes the line. An entry never has fewer than two lines, so on the last two lines the button reads Clear this line and empties the line instead.

You can also right-click a line for Insert Line (Ctrl+Ins) and Delete Line (Ctrl+Del). Enter moves to the next field, as Tab does.

Type amounts as plain numbers such as 1234.56 or 1,234.56. A comma is only ever a thousands separator.

The Name picker

Clicking Name opens Name for line [n], The customer or supplier this line is about.

• Type in Search name, company or phone. Customers and vendors both appear, each marked Customer, Supplier or Both with their phone number underneath. After three characters SeroBooks also searches the server, so a match on a company name is found too.
• Nobody — leave this line unattributed clears the name. Most lines, such as depreciation, are about nobody.
• Cancel closes the picker without changing anything.

A name matters most on the Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable lines. When a line on your A/R or A/P account (the ones set in Accounting Setup) names a customer or vendor, that amount goes on their account too:

A line on A/R or A/P with no name moves the control account only, and your customer or vendor balances will no longer add up to it.

The balance bar and the buttons

The bar pinned to the bottom of the window shows Debits and Credits totals and a status:

• Nothing entered yet until there is money on a line.
• Out by $X while the two sides differ.
• Balanced when they agree.

While something is wrong, the bar also says what, in one sentence, and every save button stays greyed out:

The buttons:

If you close the window or press Esc with amounts typed and not saved, SeroBooks asks before throwing the work away. When you are editing a saved entry, it asks once anything differs from how the entry opened.

Supporting document

The Supporting document box at the bottom takes the calculation, letter or statement behind the entry: attach a PDF or image, or photograph a receipt where the computer has a camera. A file can only be attached to an entry that exists, so on a new entry the box says Save this document first — a file has to be attached to something that exists. Save the entry, open it from the list, click Edit and attach the file there. Click an attached file to open it.

Foreign currency entries

Choosing a currency other than your home currency in Currency changes the form:

• A rate field appears: 1 USD = [Rate] CAD (your own currencies). SeroBooks fills it from the Currency List for the entry's date when a rate is recorded, and remembers the last rate you used for that currency.
• The DEBIT and CREDIT headings read DEBIT (USD) and CREDIT (USD). You type the amounts in the foreign currency; the ledger records them in home currency at the rate. If converting line by line leaves the entry a cent out, the cent is added to the largest line on the short side so the ledger still balances.
• Tick Home currency adjustment — amounts in home currency; moves only the home value of USD balances to revalue foreign balances. The amounts are then home-currency amounts and the rate field is not used. See Home Currency Adjustment.

Messages you may see:

• A currency is three letters, such as USD.
• Enter the exchange rate: 1 USD = how much in home currency?
• Line 2 names Acme Inc., whose account is in USD. Choose USD as this journal's currency. A named A/R or A/P line must be in the currency that customer's or vendor's account is kept in. The reverse case says the account is in your home currency and asks you to make the journal home currency.

Reversing entries

A reversal is a new entry that is the mirror image of the original: the same accounts, amounts, line memos, names, classes, job and currency, with every debit turned into a credit and every credit into a debit. The original stays in the books, so both can be seen side by side. The reversal's memo reads Reversal of [Entry No.] — [memo].

There are three ways to reverse an entry:

1. Tick the Accrual box when you write it. The entry is marked to reverse itself on the first day of the next month, and SeroBooks posts the reversal on that date without anyone having to remember. Automatic reversals are numbered starting REV/.
2. Reverse later, on the entry's own page: pick any date after the entry's date.
3. Reverse, on the entry's own page: post the reversal now, on a date you choose.

Unticking the Accrual box on a saved entry and saving cancels its automatic reversal. If that cannot be done, SeroBooks says The entry saved, but its auto-reversal could not be cancelled: followed by the reason.

The General Journal Entries list

Reports ▸ Accountant & Taxes ▸ Journal opens the list, headed Journal. It shows every entry in the ledger in date order, both sides together: entries you typed and the ones SeroBooks posted for your invoices, bills, payments and other documents.

• Period chooses the dates. The list opens on this month so far. The subtitle shows the dates and how many entries the period holds.
• Refresh reads the list again. New Journal opens a blank entry form.
• The filter chips narrow the list: All sources, From documents (entries posted by documents), Manual journals (entries typed here, plus reversals and transfers) and Bank.
• The totals line on the right shows the period's Debits and Credits.

A busy period may show only its first 200 entries. A banner then says PARTIAL — showing the first 200 of [n] entries and a Show more button below the list loads more, up to 500. Past that, shorten the period. If any entry in the period does not balance, a banner counts them so you can open and check each one.

An entry's own page

Double-click an entry (or select it and press Enter) to open its page. The title is its reference and the subtitle its date and source. The table lists each line: Code, Account, Memo, Name, Debit, Credit, and a Total row.

What you can do depends on the entry:

• An entry posted by a document shows Open document, which opens the invoice, bill, credit or other document behind it. It is corrected by correcting that document, so it has no Edit, Delete or Reverse.
• An entry you typed shows Edit, Delete, Reverse later and Reverse. When a reversal is already scheduled, Reverse later reads Reverses [date]; click it to change or cancel the date.
• An entry already reversed says This entry has already been reversed. The original stays in the books with its contra beside it. and offers none of these buttons. The reversal itself is marked the same way. An entry is reversed once only: a second attempt, from another window, is refused with That entry was already reversed by [Entry No.]. Reversing it again would re-create the original.

Reverse opens Reverse this entry. Enter the Reversal date (YYYY-MM-DD, today by default; The period the contra entry lands in.) and click Reverse it. The page then says Reversed on [date]. The contra entry is in the ledger beside this one.

Reverse later opens Reverse it automatically. Enter the Reverse on date (YYYY-MM-DD), or clear the field to cancel a scheduled reversal, and click Save. The date must be after the entry's own date; otherwise SeroBooks refuses with A reversal dated [date] would land on or before the entry it reverses…

Delete asks Delete [Entry No.]? and warns that the entry leaves the books with nothing to show it was there. If the period has been reported on, reverse the entry instead. Click Delete it to go ahead. Deleting cannot be undone.

Edit opens the entry in the form, titled Edit General Entry, with its date, number, memo, ticks, lines, names and classes as saved. Save it with Save & Close (Journal entry updated.).

Closed periods and the closing date password

When the company has a closing date, SeroBooks refuses to post, edit, reverse or delete anything dated on or before it. The message names the problem, for example:

This journal entry is dated 2026-03-15, which falls in a period closed on 2026-03-31. Closed periods are usually periods that have been filed — changing one changes a return that has already been submitted. Record it in the current period instead, or ask an administrator to move the closing date.

An edit is checked against both dates: the date the entry is moving to and the date it was on, so an entry in a closed period cannot be moved out of it either. A reversal is checked against the reversal date.

If a closing date password has been set, the message ends Anyone with the closing date password can enter it to save anyway. and a Closing date password box opens. Type the password, click OK, then save again. The password is held in memory on this computer for 30 minutes.

Other messages when saving

What the entry does in the books

Each line posts its debit or credit to its account on the entry's date, carrying the line's memo, name, class and the entry's job. Nothing else is posted: no tax, no inventory, no payment. The entry appears straight away in the General Ledger, the Trial Balance, the Profit & Loss and the Balance Sheet. Named A/R and A/P lines also go on the customer's or vendor's account as described in The Name picker.

Permissions

Each action has its own right in Roles and permissions, under the Journal screen:

Tips

• Write the reason in Memo, and attach the working paper. A manual entry has no document behind it, so this is what an auditor asks about first.
• Correct a posted entry in a period you have already reported on with Reverse and a new entry, not with Edit or Delete. Both halves then stay visible.
• For entries you make every month with the same accounts, click Memorize once and use the entry from the Memorized Transaction List each month.
• Use the Manual journals chip in the list to review only the entries people typed.

Common problems

The save buttons are greyed out. Read the sentence in the bottom bar: it names the one thing stopping the save. Most often a line has an account with no amount, or the entry is out by a few cents.

A customer's balance does not include my journal line. The line is on A/R but has no Name, or it is on an account other than the A/R account set in Accounting Setup. Edit the entry and name the customer on the A/R line.

I cannot attach a file to a new entry. Save the entry first, then open it from the list, click Edit and attach the file.

There is no Edit button on an entry. The entry was posted by a document (use Open document and correct the document), or it has already been reversed.

I reversed an entry and need to check it was not reversed twice. Look in the list for entries whose Detail reads Reversal of [Entry No.]. Each one is a separate reversal; delete or reverse any extra one.