Is there a way to make Journal Entries (or a workaround to have the same effect)?

[Benjamin Melançon]

From my accountant, who has installed GnuCash and accepted my books
with them, and would like to make corrections in a way i can review:

"I don't see a way in the software for me to enter a journal entry.
This would be entry I make to reclassify certain transactions, record
other transactions. I would then provide you with the journal entry
for you to enter in your software and then our records will match. I
don't want to click on individual items and change the entry you
already made, that would make it really difficult for your file to
sync with mine. Its a fairly basic accounting process its sometimes
called general journal entry or adjusting entry. Do you see a way to
do this?"

Thanks!
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[Cam Ellison]

Post by Benjamin Melançon
From my accountant, who has installed GnuCash and accepted my books
"I don't see a way in the software for me to enter a journal entry.
This would be entry I make to reclassify certain transactions, record
other transactions. I would then provide you with the journal entry
for you to enter in your software and then our records will match. I
don't want to click on individual items and change the entry you
already made, that would make it really difficult for your file to
sync with mine. Its a fairly basic accounting process its sometimes
called general journal entry or adjusting entry. Do you see a way to
do this?"

The entries your accountant will give you are not different from any
other entry. Usually, you use the year-end date. Enter the amount,
whatever label your accountant gives you, and select the two accounts.
You may need to create an account or subaccount in some cases, but
usually the existing accounts will suffice. Clarify with your
accountant that you are debiting (or crediting) correctly.

Cheers

Cam


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[Buddha Buck]

I think the real answer is to go to the "Tools" menu and select "General
Ledger". This will pull up a general ledger which includes all transactions
in the book viewed as split transactions, and allow you to add new
transactions by specifying the accounts, debits, credits, etc.

This will give you exactly the flexibility you need to put in your
accountant's general journal entries exactly as he wants them.

Post by Cam Ellison

Post by Benjamin Melançon
From my accountant, who has installed GnuCash and accepted my books
"I don't see a way in the software for me to enter a journal entry.
This would be entry I make to reclassify certain transactions, record
other transactions. I would then provide you with the journal entry
for you to enter in your software and then our records will match. I
don't want to click on individual items and change the entry you
already made, that would make it really difficult for your file to
sync with mine. Its a fairly basic accounting process its sometimes
called general journal entry or adjusting entry. Do you see a way to
do this?"

The entries your accountant will give you are not different from any
other entry. Usually, you use the year-end date. Enter the amount,
whatever label your accountant gives you, and select the two accounts.
You may need to create an account or subaccount in some cases, but
usually the existing accounts will suffice. Clarify with your
accountant that you are debiting (or crediting) correctly.
Cheers
Cam
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You can do

[Alice Lee]

Your accountant can make the entries directly into the general ledger,
dating them the last day of whatever period he is working with. Then make
an account report and send that to you. You can make those entries into
your program.

-----Original Message-----
From: gnucash-user
[mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+alee212007=***@gnucash.org] On Behalf
Of Benjamin Melançon
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2015 12:26 PM
To: gnucash-***@gnucash.org
Subject: Is there a way to make Journal Entries (or a workaround to have the
same effect)?

From my accountant, who has installed GnuCash and accepted my books with
them, and would like to make corrections in a way i can review:

"I don't see a way in the software for me to enter a journal entry.
This would be entry I make to reclassify certain transactions, record other
transactions. I would then provide you with the journal entry for you to
enter in your software and then our records will match. I don't want to
click on individual items and change the entry you already made, that would
make it really difficult for your file to sync with mine. Its a fairly
basic accounting process its sometimes called general journal entry or
adjusting entry. Do you see a way to do this?"

Thanks!
_______________________________________________
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[Mike or Penny Novack]

Post by Alice Lee
Your accountant can make the entries directly into the general ledger,
dating them the last day of whatever period he is working with. Then make
an account report and send that to you. You can make those entries into
your program.

This is one of those cases where understanding what guncash is doing and
also how old fashioned pen and ink on paper bookkeeping was done would
be of great help.

original method: Transactions were first entered into a "journal" which
was a record of transactions in date order. Each would have a debit
account (or accounts) and a credit account (or accounts) and a
description.The net of each transaction being of course zero (total
debits = total credits). These were then "posted" into the ledger
accounts with that operation checked off to indicate done (the "posted"
column). The manual process subject to transcription errors and there
were all sorts of tricks to find the offending item but still tedious.

gnucash method: Autoposting in reverse. You enter the transaction
directly in the ledger from any of the affected ledger accounts. The
journal entry is never done and exists on in implicit form (there is a
report you can request which is equivalent to a display of the journal
that would have resulted in the ledger). No chance of a transcription
error in posting as the computer will always do this correctly.

a) Tell your accountant that is what gnucash is doing.
b) Tell your accountant that it doesn't matter that gnucash doesn't have
an explicit journal. That she can just give you the "journal
transactions" for the transactions that would correct your books and you
will then enter those into gnucash doing that the gnucash way (entering
the transaction directly into the ledger from any of the affected ledger
accounts and that WOULD enter the transaction into the implicit journal.
The computer can check that what is entered is in balance.
c) The reason for the confusion on the part of your accountant is that
she pictures gnucash to be working in the reverse direction, in the same
direction as old fashioned bookkeeping would have done it. Computerized
with the "journal" real and the "ledger" implicit.
d) One of the shortcuts in traditional bookkeeping was to recognize that
90+% of the transactions tended to affect just a few of the ledger
accounts (cash being one of these). So there would be a subset of the
ledger, usually on wide, multi-column paper known as the "cashbook" and
if the transaction affected JUST a ledger account within this subset it
was entered directly here with no explicit journal entry. Only
transactions affecting an account outside this subset were entered into
the journal and posted normally. It is THAT journal that your accountant
is asking for. Doesn't exist because isn't needed by the gnucash way.
Gnucash CAN have this "enter everything directly into the ledger"
because it is easy for the computer to produce the equivalent journal
entries on demand.

Michael D Novack

PS: After you have entered the correction transactions (and this is the
proper way, NOT by changing existing entries) you will be able to
produce the journal report for these to show to your accountant.


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[David Carlson]

Post by Mike or Penny Novack

Post by Alice Lee
Your accountant can make the entries directly into the general ledger,
dating them the last day of whatever period he is working with. Then make
an account report and send that to you. You can make those entries into
your program.

This is one of those cases where understanding what guncash is doing
and also how old fashioned pen and ink on paper bookkeeping was done
would be of great help.
original method: Transactions were first entered into a "journal"
which was a record of transactions in date order. Each would have a
debit account (or accounts) and a credit account (or accounts) and a
description.The net of each transaction being of course zero (total
debits = total credits). These were then "posted" into the ledger
accounts with that operation checked off to indicate done (the
"posted" column). The manual process subject to transcription errors
and there were all sorts of tricks to find the offending item but
still tedious.
gnucash method: Autoposting in reverse. You enter the transaction
directly in the ledger from any of the affected ledger accounts. The
journal entry is never done and exists on in implicit form (there is a
report you can request which is equivalent to a display of the journal
that would have resulted in the ledger). No chance of a transcription
error in posting as the computer will always do this correctly.
a) Tell your accountant that is what gnucash is doing.
b) Tell your accountant that it doesn't matter that gnucash doesn't
have an explicit journal. That she can just give you the "journal
transactions" for the transactions that would correct your books and
you will then enter those into gnucash doing that the gnucash way
(entering the transaction directly into the ledger from any of the
affected ledger accounts and that WOULD enter the transaction into the
implicit journal. The computer can check that what is entered is in
balance.
c) The reason for the confusion on the part of your accountant is that
she pictures gnucash to be working in the reverse direction, in the
same direction as old fashioned bookkeeping would have done it.
Computerized with the "journal" real and the "ledger" implicit.
d) One of the shortcuts in traditional bookkeeping was to recognize
that 90+% of the transactions tended to affect just a few of the
ledger accounts (cash being one of these). So there would be a subset
of the ledger, usually on wide, multi-column paper known as the
"cashbook" and if the transaction affected JUST a ledger account
within this subset it was entered directly here with no explicit
journal entry. Only transactions affecting an account outside this
subset were entered into the journal and posted normally. It is THAT
journal that your accountant is asking for. Doesn't exist because
isn't needed by the gnucash way. Gnucash CAN have this "enter
everything directly into the ledger" because it is easy for the
computer to produce the equivalent journal entries on demand.
Michael D Novack
PS: After you have entered the correction transactions (and this is
the proper way, NOT by changing existing entries) you will be able to
produce the journal report for these to show to your accountant.
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This brings up an interesting point. It would be nice if there were a
way to identify who initiated a particular entry. It can be done today
by pre-pending the initiator's initials to the description without
changing GnuCash at all, but it would be nice in the future when the
program becomes multi-user to not only have an initiator field in the
record, but also a mechanism to support r/w permissions for users.

David C
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[Benjamin Melançon]

Thank you all!

If my accountant enters the correction transactions as occurring on the
last day, how do i match them up with what they are correcting? Their
description needs to include the date and description of the transactions
being corrected?

Post by David Carlson

Post by Mike or Penny Novack

Post by Alice Lee
Your accountant can make the entries directly into the general ledger,
dating them the last day of whatever period he is working with. Then make
an account report and send that to you. You can make those entries into
your program.

This is one of those cases where understanding what guncash is doing
and also how old fashioned pen and ink on paper bookkeeping was done
would be of great help.
original method: Transactions were first entered into a "journal"
which was a record of transactions in date order. Each would have a
debit account (or accounts) and a credit account (or accounts) and a
description.The net of each transaction being of course zero (total
debits = total credits). These were then "posted" into the ledger
accounts with that operation checked off to indicate done (the
"posted" column). The manual process subject to transcription errors
and there were all sorts of tricks to find the offending item but
still tedious.
gnucash method: Autoposting in reverse. You enter the transaction
directly in the ledger from any of the affected ledger accounts. The
journal entry is never done and exists on in implicit form (there is a
report you can request which is equivalent to a display of the journal
that would have resulted in the ledger). No chance of a transcription
error in posting as the computer will always do this correctly.
a) Tell your accountant that is what gnucash is doing.
b) Tell your accountant that it doesn't matter that gnucash doesn't
have an explicit journal. That she can just give you the "journal
transactions" for the transactions that would correct your books and
you will then enter those into gnucash doing that the gnucash way
(entering the transaction directly into the ledger from any of the
affected ledger accounts and that WOULD enter the transaction into the
implicit journal. The computer can check that what is entered is in
balance.
c) The reason for the confusion on the part of your accountant is that
she pictures gnucash to be working in the reverse direction, in the
same direction as old fashioned bookkeeping would have done it.
Computerized with the "journal" real and the "ledger" implicit.
d) One of the shortcuts in traditional bookkeeping was to recognize
that 90+% of the transactions tended to affect just a few of the
ledger accounts (cash being one of these). So there would be a subset
of the ledger, usually on wide, multi-column paper known as the
"cashbook" and if the transaction affected JUST a ledger account
within this subset it was entered directly here with no explicit
journal entry. Only transactions affecting an account outside this
subset were entered into the journal and posted normally. It is THAT
journal that your accountant is asking for. Doesn't exist because
isn't needed by the gnucash way. Gnucash CAN have this "enter
everything directly into the ledger" because it is easy for the
computer to produce the equivalent journal entries on demand.
Michael D Novack
PS: After you have entered the correction transactions (and this is
the proper way, NOT by changing existing entries) you will be able to
produce the journal report for these to show to your accountant.
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This brings up an interesting point. It would be nice if there were a
way to identify who initiated a particular entry. It can be done today
by pre-pending the initiator's initials to the description without
changing GnuCash at all, but it would be nice in the future when the
program becomes multi-user to not only have an initiator field in the
record, but also a mechanism to support r/w permissions for users.
David C
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[Mike or Penny Novack]

Post by Benjamin Melançon
Thank you all!
If my accountant enters the correction transactions as occurring on the
last day, how do i match them up with what they are correcting? Their
description needs to include the date and description of the transactions
being corrected?

What I suggest is that you first run the report which would produce the
"journal" so that you can see what a journal looks like. If you do that
before and after the books contain the correction transactions made by
your accountant you can find those (the correction transactions) easily.
You are saying that the description field (of these transactions
supplied by your accountant) will be having the date and description of
the transaction they are correcting. Presumably that would be done by
your accountant when creating these transactions.

If not, if you are expected to find the transactions being corrected
yourself, without good knowledge/experience of bookkeeping that might
not be easy.

Michael
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