Journal

In accounting software, journals are used to record all the financial transactions of a company. Each transaction in a journal is represented by a separate journal entry. These entries are used to create the general ledger, which is then used to create the financial statements of a business.

When a company records all their transactions in a single journal, it can become large and difficult to maintain and track. This is why large companies often use multiple journals (also known as subjournals) to categorize and manage journal entries.

Such journals can be divided into two categories:

• Special journals: journals used to record specific types of transactions; for example, a purchases journal, a sales journal, or a cash management journal.
• General journals: journals used to record transactions that fall outside the scope of the special journals.