Journal Entries Examples

Bookkeeping Journals

The best way to learn about bookkeeping journals is to look at a variety of different journal entries examples and to practice entering them, which you can do using the journal template in Excel which is free to download, see below.

This Excel workbook has two sheets, one for income and one for expenses.

Download the template and open it. You must Enable the document to be able to enter information to it.

Save it to a folder on your device or filing system somewhere you know you can find it again.

When you open it you will see three sheets:

1. Income Journal Sheet
2. Expense Journal Sheet
3. Data Lists

journal Entries for Income

Here is a business transaction:

On October 15, Wow Plumbers installed a new bath and sink in Mr and Mrs Jackson's house. The Jacksons paid $1,500.

Below is what the journal result looks like after entering the details of the above transaction.

There are several items of information that change with each and every journal:

• The date - the date the payment was made.
  
• The details - The two accounts that are affected in the bookkeeping system, in this case the bank account in to which the money was deposited, and the labor and parts accounts where the income is recorded.
• The debit and the credit columns - which should always add up to the same amount.
  
• A line describing the reason for the journal - in this case the sale to the Jacksons.
  

Journal Entries for expenses

This journal is based on the following business transaction:-

On October 31, Wow Plumbers paid $350.00 to 101 Office Supplies for paper and ink for the printer.

Below is what the journal result looks like after entering the details of the above transaction.

As with the sales, there are specific items of information that change with every journal.

The headings: Date, Details, Debit, Credit and the 'Journal ID'.

Journal Entries Example Template Input Sheet

The Excel template has an input section just above the journal results, they look like this:

Data Lists

Both the income and expenses journal practice sheets are linked to the Data Lists sheet.

You can add information to this sheet or change the information currently in there.

Saving the journals

If you want to keep a record of all journals you enter you will need to copy and paste (values only) the journal results into a new sheet after every journal you enter. This template will not do it automatically. Here's an example:

Basic Accounting Journal Entries

You can download and/or print this list of business transactions and practice entering them into the excel template.

The accounts to use are in red.

You need to make sure you enter the sales transactions into the income sheet.

Enter the purchases transactions into the expenses sheet.

Or just hand-write them out using this lined journal paper template.

The journal entry examples are here.

The description line is slightly different on the examples.

They say 'payment to' instead of 'purchase from' as per excel template above but it is fine to use these different phrases which mean the same thing.

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