Creating General Journal Entries

In this article:

• Adding Individual Lines to a General Journal Entry
• Uploading Multiple Lines into a General Journal
• Viewing Bank Account and Credit Card General Journal Entries

In this article, you will learn how to create general journal entries within Actionstep. Specifically, you can add individual lines to the general journal, or you can upload a spreadsheet that contains multiple lines. 

Most of the transactions and accounting records in Actionstep are tied to ledger transactions behind-the-scenes, but you are also able to manually transfer amounts between different accounts using general journal entries. 

Adding Individual Lines to a General Journal Entry

To create a general journal entry:

1. In Actionstep, go to Accounting > Accounts > General Journal. The General Journal List appears. It includes a list of entries that have been created so far. 
2. Click New General Journal. The Creating New General Journal page appears.
3. Review and adjust any information in the fields above the table.
4. In the table, provide at least the Account and Amount information for both a debit entry and a credit entry to ensure double entry. (Click Add Line to create as many entries as needed.)
5. Update any other fields as needed. 
6. When finished, click Post, located at the bottom-left corner of the table. The entry is posted.

Uploading Multiple Lines into a General Journal

If you have multiple lines you want to add to your general journal, you can upload a spreadsheet containing those lines. You can then review and validate the imported data before you commit the transaction. 

To do this: 

1. In Actionstep, go to Accounting > Accounts > General Journal. The General Journal List appears. It includes a list of entries that have been created so far.  
2. Click New General Journal. The Creating a New General Journal page appears. 
3. At the bottom of the table, click Upload lines from file. The Load File window appears.
4. Either drop the spreadsheet you’ve created with your lines in the box or click in the box to upload the spreadsheet. Once the spreadsheet is loaded, the Selected Header Row window appears.
5. Review the information in the different rows and columns:
   • Click the UTF-8 drop-down list and choose the format you want to use for character encoding. (Most users should use the default UTF-8 format.)
   • Click Switch Rows/Columns to rearrange how the data is displayed, if needed. 
   • If your spreadsheet does not include headers, select No headers in the sheet. 
6. Click Next. The Map Columns window appears. 
7. Correlate fields in the Template Fields column with the Columns in your File. Note that Actionstep will attempt to validate the information and warn you if the spreadsheet is formatted incorrectly or if required information is missing. 
8. When finished, click Next. The Verify Data window appears.
   
   Any rows that contain validation errors will be marked in light red. The specific cell with the error will be darker. You can click the field to view the error. Typically errors happen when the text is in the wrong format (e.g., Actionstep expects a number but the value contains alphabetic characters) or a field is left blank. 
9. Review the final information and click Submit. The lines are processed and imported into your general journal.  
10. Update any other fields as needed. 
11. When finished, click one of the Post options, located at the bottom-left corner of the table.

Viewing Bank Account and Credit Card General Journal Entries

You can view General Journal entries that have been processed against bank accounts and credit cards.

To do this:

1. In Actionstep, go to Accounting > Banking. The Banking page appears.
2. From the list of options along the left, find the bank account or credit card transaction you want to review and click its Options for this account icon.
3. From the pop-up menu that appears, select Transactions (under the View heading). The Transactions page appears, showing journal entries with the entry type General Journal.

Because the amounts are journaled directly to or from a bank account or credit card, the journal entry will appear in the reconciliation for that bank account or credit card.

Related Articles:

• Editing a General Ledger Account
• Deleting/Archiving a General Ledger Account