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Bookkeeping All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition
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Bookkeeping All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

by Lita Epstein, John A. Tracy
August 2019
Intermediate to advanced content levelIntermediate to advanced
608 pages
15h 28m
English
For Dummies
Content preview from Bookkeeping All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4

Keeping Journals

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Starting things off with point of original entry

Bullet Tracking cash, sales, and purchases

Bullet Posting to the appropriate accounts

Bullet Simplifying the journals process with computers

When it comes to doing your books, you must start somewhere. You could take a shortcut and list every transaction in the affected accounts, but after recording hundreds and maybe thousands of transactions in just one month, imagine what a nightmare you’d face if your books didn’t balance and you had to find the error. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack — a haystack of numbers!

Because you enter every transaction in two places — that is, as a debit in one account and a credit in another account — in a double-entry bookkeeping system, you need to have a place where you can easily match those debits and credits. (For more on the double-entry system, see Book 1, Chapter 1.)

Long ago, bookkeepers developed a system of journals to give businesses a starting point for each transaction. This chapter introduces you to the process of journalizing your transactions; ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781119592907Purchase book