Bookkeeping lessons · Accounting glossary

What makes a journal entry reviewable?

A journal entry records a business event as balanced account movements. A reviewable entry also explains its source, date, currency and accounting purpose.

Key takeaways: save a draft while you investigate; separate evidence from assumptions; review every line before posting; keep a stable source reference; and preserve posted history when correcting it.

What information does an entry need?

A useful entry connects an identifiable event to its date, currency and account movements, with enough explanation for another person to follow.

The journal entry is not simply a description beside an amount. Its company and book establish whose records change. Its accounting date places the effect in a period. Its lines identify the accounts and debit or credit amounts. Its source reference connects the entry to a document, statement or other evidence. Together, those fields make the resulting balance explainable.

A description such as “adjustment” is rarely enough. A more useful synthetic description is “Correct duplicated January telephone expense; original journal identified in the linked reversal.” It tells the reviewer what changed without requiring private details to be copied unnecessarily into every report.

How do you move from evidence to lines?

Write the event in ordinary language, decide the account effects, and only then translate them into debit and credit lines.

For the original example, a business completes a service and receives 1,000.00 immediately. Cash increases, and service income increases. The entry debits cash by 1,000.00 and credits service income by 1,000.00. We assume one currency and exclude tax, unpaid amounts and other conditions. Those assumptions are part of the example; a real event needs its own evidence.

If the 1,000.00 were a loan advance instead, the second account would change. Reusing the same template without checking the event would produce a balanced but incorrectly classified result. This is why the source review comes before the line entry.

Why separate saving from posting?

A draft preserves work while the accounting decision remains open. Posting is the distinct action that changes ledger balances.

While preparing a draft, you may still be waiting for a missing receipt, an account choice or an explanation of a difference. Saving that work should not make an incomplete conclusion part of the books. An unposted draft is therefore different from a failed posting and different again from a posted transaction.

At review, compare the current draft with the evidence. If another person changes it after you reviewed it, review the new version before posting. A revision check is a software control supporting that practice. It does not know whether you selected the right account, but it can prevent your approval from silently applying to changed content.

Which dates need separate attention?

The accounting date and the timestamp of data entry describe different things and must remain distinguishable.

A transaction can be entered today with an accounting date in an earlier open period, subject to policy and permissions. The entry timestamp shows when the system received it. Neither should be disguised as the other. When reviewing a late entry, ask why it belongs in the selected accounting period and whether a closed or previously issued period changes the permitted treatment.

Changing a display timezone should not move a business accounting date into another day. Similarly, a foreign exchange rate should have its own effective date and provenance. A visually convenient date is not a substitute for the event’s evidence or the applicable reporting policy.

How should multiple lines be checked?

Check both the arithmetic and the purpose of every line; a balanced total does not excuse an unexplained component.

1. Confirm that all accounts belong to the selected company and book.
2. Check the account classifications and intended use.
3. Verify each amount against the source and the supported precision.
4. Add debit lines and credit lines independently.
5. Explain each difference between the source total and recorded amounts.
6. Confirm the period is open and the source has not already been posted.

A split 125.00 payment might allocate 100.00 to one evidenced expense and 25.00 to another. That is a valid three-line structure, with a 125.00 cash credit. An unexplained 25.00 line added solely to make the entry balance is a different matter. The same arithmetic can represent a supported classification or conceal a problem.

What happens if posting is interrupted?

The operator needs a durable result that distinguishes a saved posting from a request that never completed.

If a connection drops after the server commits, blindly entering a second transaction risks duplication. A well-designed posting path gives the same request the same result and rejects attempts to reuse that identity for different content. As an operator, look for the source’s posting status and journal reference before starting over. A loading indicator or a browser timeout is not reliable evidence about whether the database committed.

Keep the business source identity separate from a page position or session. The evidence must remain traceable after sorting, pagination, logout and a future correction. This is one reason an audit trail needs stable identifiers rather than names assembled from screen state.

How should reviewers handle an incorrect posted entry?

Find the original, establish the intended correction and preserve the relationship between the records.

Review whether the whole entry should be reversed or whether a different reviewed adjustment is appropriate. Check period status and dependencies such as reconciliation or settlement. Do not change the posted amount directly to make an earlier report look as though the mistake never happened. The correction lesson explains how a dated reversal preserves that history.

For practice, write an entry description that another person could use to locate the evidence six months later. Then ask that person to explain the entry back to you. Any unexplained line, unclear date or missing source is an opportunity to improve the record before it becomes part of the books.