General journal (that is one of the accounting reports) arranges accounting entries by receipt date, either separated by receipt type or without the separation. General journal can be modified to meet different kinds of needs with the report’s search criteria.
General journal is found in Reports > Accounting reports (or alternatively in Accounting > Accounting reports) when General journal is chosen from Accounting report type drop-down menu.
More information about the buttons and functions (that are common with all report types) in the upper section of the view can be found here.
Search criteria
- Accounting report type drop-down menu is used to choose General journal.
- Receipt date fields are used to determine the time period of the general journal.
- Presentation options section includes selections:
- Show invoice date column on the report: this selection includes also invoice date to the report (along with accounting date).
- Show opening balances for tracking period: this selection adds a column to the report that has the opening balances of tracking periods.
- Hide creator in exports
- Hide company ID in exports
- Hide search options in exports
- Presentation-type selection determines how transaction rows are shown on General journal.
- By transactions: receipts’ accounting entries are shown as report rows. Also VAT information is shown in search results.
- By receipt: shows receipts’ accounting values as report rows. This selection is useful when wanting to see a list of receipts sorted by receipt date.
- By transactions, dimensions showing shows accounting entries and their dimensions in dimension columns that are named after the dimension names. Each dimension has its separate column showing the dimension items to which the transaction has been allocated to (in that dimension).
- Receipt status drop-down menu determines the statuses of invoices that are included in the report.
- Sorting order drop-down menu has two options: Receipt type-receipt number (that is selected by default) and Date-Receipt type-receipt number.
More options menu is used to choose new search criteria to the report if needed. The following search criteria is available with general journal:
- Receipt type
- This search criterion defines the receipt type(s) to be included in the general journal.
- Receipt currency
- This search criterion determines only receipts in a specific currency to be included in the report.
- Receipt Name
- This criterion narrows the search only to receipts that are named with the content given in the Name field. The search can be done with the entire name or only with a part of it.
- Customer’s Company ID
- This search criterion limits the search with specific Business ID. The ID can be entered as a whole or just partially. It doesn’t matter whether or not the ID includes a country code and a hyphen.
- Entry period (yyyy-mm)
- This search criterion is used to limit general journal’s scope by the entry period (that is a month). If both receipt date and entry period have been given, general journal will be formed by the shortest combination: for example, if Receipt datesearch criterion has a period of 01.10.2019 – 30.11.2019 and Entry period search criterion has a period of 2019-11 – 2019-12, the general journal’s time period will be 01.11.2019 – 30.11.2019.
- Transaction value
- This search criterion is used to limit the search by accounting entry values. The function does the search from Accounting value column of the general journal. Also < and > symbols can be used to limit the results.
- Ledger account numbers
- This search criterion can be used to only include entries, for example, from just one specific bookkeeping account. If multiple accounts are chosen, it is done by using a comma as a separator between account numbers (e.g. 1700, 1800, 1910).
- Ledger accounts
- This search criterion is used to set desired accounts to be included in the report. The accounts are chosen in the Ledger accounts field (choosing multiple accounts is done, for example, by holding down Ctrl button when selecting accounts). Because there are a lot of accounts, they can also be chosen in a separate window that is opened by clicking the magnifying glass button.
- Receipt numbers
- This search criterion can be used to limit the search results by specific receipt numbers. Including more than one receipt number is done by separating the numbers with commas (e.g. 100, 101, 102).
- Transaction description
- This search criterion limits the search with specific transaction description. The search is made from the Transaction description fields of receipts.
- Report language
- This search criterion determines in which language the report is presented.
- Report currency
- This search criterion determines in which currency the report values are presented.
- Dimensions
- With this search criterion, only entries with specific dimension’s item(s) are brought to the general journal.
- By adding this search criterion, a new menu of Dimensions appears with Items field under it.
- The dimension to be included in the report is chosen in Dimensions. Only one dimension can be chosen for one report; choosing multiple dimensions is therefore not possible.
- Items lists all the items that are created under the dimension that is chosen in Dimensions. One or more items can be chosen. Choosing multiple items is done, for example, by holding down Ctrl button when selecting items. If there are a lot of items, they can also be selected in a separate window that is opened by clicking the magnifying glass button.
- If multiple items have been chosen, there is no column that specifies the item of a dimension in a general journal’s row. If item-specific information on general journal is needed, the general journal has to be created with choosing only one item at a time.
Buttons in the search results
General journal's search results can be sorted based on the preferred column by clicking on the column titles.
- Invoice button is used to access the Invoice view of the active row. If the row in question is a journal receipt or other receipt that does not have the Invoice view, the button leads to the Accounting view of the receipt.
- Accounting button leads to the Accounting view of the active row’s receipt. It is also possible to go straight to the row’s Accounting view by clicking the text in the row’s Name column.
- Attachments button opens a separate window that shows possible attachments of the active row’s receipt.
- Excel, HTML and PDF buttons are used to examine the report in different kinds of file formats.
- Amounts button opens a separate window that shows a summary of the amounts of different receipt types and their transactions.