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:

  1. Choose Banking > Make General Journal Entries.

    Note: You can also make journal entries using the Transaction Center.

  2. 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
    Left View
  3. If you want the date of the transaction to be different than today's date, change the date that QuickBooks filled in.
  4. Fill in the entry number of the transaction.
  5. 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.
  6. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. Click Print button.
  3. On the print screen, check to make sure everything looks okay and that you've chosen the right printer.
  4. Click Print.