Traditionally in accounting, transactions are recorded in journals and then posted to account ledgers. For this reason, journals are often called books of original entry, and account ledgers are called books of final entry. However, there is an overwhelming reason why journals should be used; it is often necessary or convenient to concentrate information for a particular type of transaction in one place. For example, a sales journal is especially useful for keeping customer invoices in one list, where individual invoices can be looked up by invoice number.
In NV2, transactions can be added to ledgers via journals, or added directly to the account ledgers themselves. When you add transactions directly to account ledgers, NV2 automatically creates a corresponding journal entry in the specified journal. In this way, you have the convenience of posting directly to accounts, and the benefit of having all transactions organized in journals.
In the example below, we are looking at a Bank Payment journal (the journal desktop has been maximized, in order to see all the journal columns without having to scroll right or left). The active transaction is a payment for 4,280.00, issued from bank account 1060 to Tri-Star Property, dated May 1, 2010, reference (check) number 5721.
This is a simple journal entry, affecting two accounts (bank account 1060 is credited and vendor account TRI-STAR PROPERTY is debited). We can go directly from the debit or credit side of a journal entry to the corresponding posting in the account ledger by using <F9>, the Go to>Account command.
NOTE: To use the <F9> feature, you must be positioned on the account name field before you press <F9> so NV2 knows which side of the details you wish to look at.
Activate any field displaying information from the account posted to and press <F9>.
In the example shown, activating the Bank or Bank Description field and pressing <F9> will navigate the Database Explorer to the bank account posted to, display the bank ledger and activate the resulting posting.
Activate any field in the posting in the account ledger and press <F9>.