Whilst I appreciate that journal entries are fundamental to basic accounting and double-entry bookkeeping, is there any “shortcut” to entering these into QuickFile.
Take the example in here for entering a journal entry for recording the initial share capital in a Ltd company:
Entering this requires manually entering “From: Ordinary Shares” for the Dr and “To: Director’s Loan” for the Cr, and of course the amounts should match.
It seems to me that it would be more straightforward just to have a feature to record an “internal transfer”… from “Ordinary Shares” to “Director’s Loan” for an amount of £2.00. No need to type anything (apart from a single journal reference), and no need to ensure that the Dr matches the Cr. This would ultimately create the same journal entry, but more easily.
I appreciate that things can get more complicated, but in many cases it really is just a simple transfer in effect? But you’d always have the existing journal entry interface if you just want to get down and dirty.
Perhaps I’m being an accounting heathen to even suggest this? You no longer get the advantage of the double part of double-entry? Any other reason not to?
OK thanks for pointing out that option @rhc. It’s basically what I was suggesting, though maybe it’s made to look like a “bad thing” whereas what I had in mind was more of an “above board” shortcut to creating a simple journal entry… mainly to avoid having to manually write in the journal entry where each side is going to or coming from, as per the share capital example, which is tedious and prone to error and typos etc (and is duplicating information that is already be apparent from the source and destination accounts).
Wouldn’t the journal entry be the same (apart from the description/note) for 1 share at £100 and 100 shares at £1… just a Dr and Cr of £100 instead of £2 as per the above example?
Yes of course. Maybe I’ve miss read your initial question. You asked if there could be a short cut to creating a 2 line journal.
I’m trying to figure out what that shortcut might look like if it’s going to replace simply adding two lines to a journal entry. If your talking automation with inputting details then I don’t see how it would be any quicker.
It would involve only adding one line instead of two, i.e. halving the amount of input in simple terms.
It just struck (as a non-accountant, so I’m probably overlooking something) as being duplicative (and potentially error-prone) in the example above to have to manually type in “From: Ordinary Shares” on one line and then “To: Director’s Loan” on the other line, when this information is already known from the nominal code drop-down on each line.
So why not just have a single line with two drop-downs (“from” and “to”)… the descriptions will write themselves (without any errors or typos).
And you also just need to add a single “note”, not two. And a single amount (because each side has to balance, right?).
