College Accounting, by Heintz and Parry

Chapter 4: Journalizing and Posting Transactions

As December rolled around, Eddie knew that he wanted to do financial statements at the end of the year, so he decided that he should use the formal method of accounting for transactions: general journals and general ledgers. These are part of the standard flow of accounting information:

source general general financialdocuments journal ledger statements

Eddie transferred all of the October and November transactions into the general journal and general ledger. Because Daniel and Lori went home for the holidays (and his creditors both extended his payment terms into January), they only had one transaction in December: on the 10th, Eddie got paid the $300 that he was owed from the November gig.

Question: What accounts would get debited and credited in this transaction?

Answer: Cash (an asset) would get debited (it’s increasing) and Accounts Receivable (asset) would get credited (it’s decreasing because the customer no longer owes the money).

A General Journal allows you to list the debit and credit for a transaction together, so that a 3rd party could easily see what happened. Journalizing a transaction is a 4-step process.

Before starting the process, each account should be assigned an account number. There is a standard system for assigning account numbers. The first digit should be a:

1 for an asset2 for a liability3 for capital or drawing4 for a revenue5 for an expense.

Step One:Enter the date

Date Description P. R. Debit Credit 1999

Dec. 10

Step Two:Enter the Debit

Date Description P. R. Debit Credit 1999

Dec. 10 Cash 300.00

Step Three: Enter the Credit (Indent the account title)

Date Description P. R. Debit Credit 1999 Dec. 10 Cash 300.00

Accounts Receivable 300.00

Step Four:Enter the Explanation (Indent even farther)

Date Description P. R. Debit Credit 1999 Dec. 10 Cash 300.00 Accounts Receivable 300.00 Received payment for Nov.

17 gig.

The General Ledger is similar to a T-account but with more detail.The thick lines show where the “T” is in a general ledger account. Posting a debit or credit from the general journal into the general ledger takes 5 steps.

account Cash account no. 111 Balance

Date Item P.R. Debit Credit Debit Credit

Step One:Enter the Date

account Accounts Receivable account no. 121 BalanceDate Item P.R. Debit Credit Debit Credit

1999Nov.17 J1 300.00 300.00

Dec.10

Step Two:Enter the Debit or Credit in the debit or credit column.

account Accounts Receivable account no. 121 BalanceDate Item P.R. Debit Credit Debit Credit

1999Nov.17 J1 300.00 300.00

Dec.10 300.00

Step Three:Enter the New Balance (in this case, the new

balance is zero, so a line is drawn in the debit and credit balance columns)

account Accounts Receivable account no. 121 BalanceDate Item P.R. Debit Credit Debit Credit

1999Nov.17 J1 300.00 300.00

Dec.10 300.00

Step Four:Enter the Journal Page in the Posting Reference (P.R.) Column account Accounts Receivable account no. 121 BalanceDate Item P.R. Debit Credit Debit Credit

1999Nov.17 J1 300.00 300.00

Dec.10 J2 300.00

Step Five:Enter the Ledger Account Number in the P.R. Column of the Journal

Date Description P. R. Debit Credit 1999 Dec. 10 Cash 111 300.00 Accounts Receivable 121 300.00 Received payment for Nov.

17 gig.

At this point, Eddie did a trial balance (a listing of all general ledger balances) to see if his general ledger was posted properly. His trial balance showed the following: Eddie and the Losers Trial Balance For Year Ended Dec. 31, 1999 Debits CreditsCash 833Musical Instruments 2200Supplies 60Prepaid Insurance 120Accts. Payable 360Eddie O’Hare, Capital 2000Eddie O’Hare, Drawing 12Gig Revenue 525 Wage Expense 80 Equip. Rental Expense 30

3335 2885 It didn’t balance!

Eddie went through the following steps to find his error:

1) rechecked his addition (finding no error);

2) calculated how much he was off (3335 - 2885 = $450);

3) looked for a transaction or balance for that amount ($450), because he might have skipped a debit or credit (he didn’t find the amount anywhere); and

4) looked for a transaction for half that amount (450/2=$225), because he might have put a debit on the credit side or vice versa (he made a $225 entry to cash and gig revenue on Oct. 17, but he found that he had posted it correctly).

The next steps to find his error were:

5) dividing the difference by 9 (450/9 = $50), and looking for a transaction (or balance) for that number or 10 times that number (he might have written 500 as 50 or 50 as 500). This is called a sliding error. Neither amount appeared on his books, however.

6) Since the difference was divisible by 9 (450/9 = 50), he looked for a transposition error (where two numbers next to each other get flipped). The difference of

50indicates we should look for a number where the digit in the hundreds place and the digit in the tens place differed by 5.

Eddie found one number that fit his description, the cash balance of $833. Sure enough, the general ledger showed that the balance should have been $383, a difference of $450! Eddie and the Losers Trial Balance For Year Ended Dec. 31, 1999 Debits CreditsCash 833Musical Instruments 2200Supplies 60Prepaid Insurance 120Accts. Payable 360Eddie O’Hare, Capital 2000Eddie O’Hare, Drawing 12Gig Revenue 525 Wage Expense 80 Equip. Rental Expense 30

3335 2885

Eddie’s method will find most errors, unless there is more than one. In that case, he would probably need to retrace his transactions step by step. Eddie and the Losers Trial Balance For Year Ended Dec. 31, 1999 Debits CreditsCash 383Musical Instruments 2200Supplies 60Prepaid Insurance 120Accts. Payable 360Eddie O’Hare, Capital 2000Eddie O’Hare, Drawing 12Gig Revenue 525 Wage Expense 80 Equip. Rental Expense 30

2885 2885 Now it balances!