How to create a general journal in MYOB

MYOB describes the general journal as the place for business activity you wouldn't record with its other kinds of transactions, such as payments or deposits, and says journals are usually kept for special situations.

Work out every line before you open the page. Each row in a journal is a line item, and MYOB asks for a category on each one plus an amount on one side only. You need at least two lines, and the debits and credits have to come to the same total. Which categories to use, and which side each amount goes on, depends on your business, so check with your accountant if you're unsure.

Have the date and a short description ready, and know whether any line relates to a job, since a job can be chosen on each line. If a category you need doesn't exist yet, you can create it from the Category field as you go.

1. Go to the Accounting menu and choose Create general journal.
2. Enter the Date, or click the calendar icon to pick it.
3. If you want, add a Description of transaction so the journal is easy to recognise later.
4. Check the Reference number. If you change it, MYOB carries on its automatic numbering from your new number.
5. On the first line, choose a Category. To add one, click the dropdown arrow in the Category field and choose Create category.
6. Enter the line's Debit amount or its Credit amount as a positive number, with no minus sign.
7. Add a short Description for the line. Enter a Quantity if one applies, and choose a Job if the line relates to one.
8. Add the remaining lines the same way. To remove a row, click its delete (x) icon.
9. Check that Out of balance shows $0.00. If it doesn't, look for a debit or credit that has no matching amount on the other side.
10. Click Record, or open Record and new and choose Record and create new or Record and duplicate.

Once recorded, the journal is saved under its reference number. To find it again, choose General journals from the Accounting menu. The Find transactions page opens already filtered to general journals, and you can narrow it with a date range, a category, or part of the description or amount in the Search field. Click a journal's Reference no. to open it.

To get journals on paper, run the Journals report and print the report it displays.

A recorded journal can be opened, edited and recorded again, or deleted with Delete and a confirmation. MYOB discourages this, though. Its preferred fix for a wrong journal is a new entry that reverses the original, followed by a correct one, so the audit trail shows what happened. The reversing how-to covers what MYOB offers for that.

If MYOB won't record the journal, check the Out of balance field: it must be $0.00. Also check that no line has both a debit and a credit, and that no amount was typed as a negative.

If you use AccountRight on the desktop, journals are entered in the Record Journal Entry window, opened from the Accounts command centre. You choose an account on each line rather than a category, and you can attach PDF, TIFF, JPEG or PNG files under 10MB with Attachments. The General Journal No. shows Auto # for the next number; typing over it there doesn't change the numbering of later journals.

MYOB's desktop notes also say some adjustments have their own windows instead of a journal: Transfer Money for moves between bank accounts, Inventory Adjustment for stock you track in AccountRight, and Opening Balances on the Setup menu for amounts you had when you started.