A journal is used to post a number of ledger transactions to the accounts in Financials. In its simplest form, a single ledger transaction posts either a debit or credit amount to a selected account, in an accounting period.
Note: The transaction value can be held in up to three different currencies: base currency, transaction currency, second base or reporting currency. The transaction can also contain a memo value.
A journal is used to post different types of transaction, including: sales invoices, purchase invoices, cash receipts, cash payments, expenses, asset or liability movements, depreciation, to name but a few.
SunSystems ensures that your ledger remains in balance at all times. It does this by ensuring that every journal balances. For a journal to balance, the total of the debit transaction amounts for an accounting period must equal the total of the credit transaction amounts for the same period.
This means that a journal must contain at least two ledger transactions.
In a multi-currency environment, up to three currency values can be entered on each journal transaction. The base currency values must always balance before a journal can be posted. The business unit posting rules determine which of the other currency values must also balance. SunSystems can force a journal to balance by automatically posting a balancing amount to a selected account. Transactions posted to memo accounts do not have to balance.
Input Methods
Journals are used to record ledger and asset transactions. Journals can enter the system in the following ways:

Manually entered online Imported from an external system Generated automatically by another SunSystems function.

Manually Entering Journals
A journal can be entered manually into SunSystems. The main transaction entry form is Ledger Entry. It provides powerful and sophisticated features that enable you to enter journals quickly and easily. The type of journal you wish to enter is determined by a user-definable journal type.
The journal type is used to tailor the Ledger Entry form appearance and validation rules, to the particular journal's requirements. You can create any number of journal types to meet different needs.
You can, for example, use one journal type for local currency receipts, and another for cash received in other currencies where additional currency details are required.
Journal Presets can be used to predefine some, or all, of the journal transaction details for a manually entered journal. This can speed up the journal input process and ensure the correct information is entered on each journal transaction.
Importing Journals
Journals can be created outside of SunSystems, for example, by another software package, and then imported into SunSystems Financials. Ledger Import is used to load, validate and post these journals. The source of these transactions can vary. They may be generated by another SunSystems Financials business unit, or SunSystems Order Fulfilment, another software package, or an in-house application.
Transactions are validated before they are accepted into the ledger. Unvalidated transactions are rejected and not imported.
Automatically Generated Journals
There are a number of SunSystems Financials functions that automatically generate and post journals. They are: