Banking: Making a general journal entry
If you're familiar with making adjusting entries in a general journal, you can use the General Journal Entry window to enter debits and credits.
Important: QuickBooks provides the general journal for bookkeepers who know debits from credits and who prefer to enter certain transactions in a general journal. If you are unfamiliar with how a general journal works, you
do not need to make journal entries.
To make a journal entry:
- Choose Banking > Make General Journal Entries.
Note: You can also make journal entries using the
Transaction Center.
- To enter a new entry, click the "New Entry..." on the left panel or click the + at the bottom of the list. To edit a check, select a check in the list on the left panel. (If you don't see this list, click the Left View.)
How to use this form

- If you want the date of the transaction to be different than today's date, change the date that QuickBooks filled in.
- Fill in the entry number of the transaction.
- In the Account column of the detail area, enter the first account in your transaction. Then enter the debit or credit amount, your memo about the amount, and a source name. If the “Use Class Tracking” preference is in effect, you can enter a class in the Class column.
- Enter additional distribution lines until the transaction reaches a zero balance (the total in the Debit column should equal the total in the Credit column).
What happens:
The entry appears in the register for any balance sheet account involved, and in reports showing any income or expense for the accounts you included.
To print a journal entry:
- Choose the journal entry you want to print from the list on the left side of the window, if you're not already looking at it.
- Click
.
- On the print screen, check to make sure everything looks okay and that you've chosen the right printer.
- Click Print.