A journal is a standard accountancy term for a record that is used to move money from one nominal code (account) to another. This guidance gives information on what the journal does and how it is used. Access the journal by first enabling it and then clicking on the journal tab.

Journal Example

As an example, imagine you had two nominal codes with the following balances at the minute:

• Marketing = £10
• Advertising = £100

A Journal can be used to transfer an amount of money between these two accounts. If you wanted to move £5.00 from Marketing to Advertising then you would post the following journal entry:

Nominal Code               Debit       Credit

Marketing                      5.00  

Advertising                                    5.00

Total Balance                5.00        5.00

This will leave you with a balance of:

• Marketing = £5.
• Advertising = £105.

To clarify

• Debiting = Money Out.
• Crediting = Money In.

Uses

The journal can be used for many purposes some of which are listed below.

• VAT Adjustment – there will be times when you may need to change the VAT liability on a VAT return but again you may not need to enter a transaction such as a invoice, receipt or a bank transaction
• Opening Balances – if you are an existing business moving to Tally you will need to enter in an opening balance journal
• Wages – you can use the journal to record salary and tax information manually instead of using one of our payroll add ons
• Year End – running the year-end report creates a journal.  This moves all the money from your profit and loss nominal codes before a certain date (your financial year end date) over to a retained profits nominal code
• Assets & Depreciation – you can use the journal to manage the value of assets and depreciate them regularly. This moves the money from your assets nominal code (which is how much it is worth) to a depreciation nominal code (which is how much it has lost)