Reversing Journals

Hello, on the company I use we post a lot of month end journals. Which are usually reversed on day 1 of the new month (eg. Prepayment, Accrurals etc…). Currently I’m completing 2 journals, the last day, and the first day. It would be good if there was a ‘tick box’ for reversing to automatically reverse the accruals on the next day. Probably more of a Power user? Certainly would save a lot of time.

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I’ve not heard this suggestion before but will leave open for others to comment/vote.

I can see this has not been popular… I can suggest that this would make the software more appealing to accountants as most software has this currently with the file I work with it takes time to do all the journals at period end to then have to copy manually and switch the figures around from dr to cr. I know for Affinity users they would probably enjoy this feature most. I understand it may not be familiar to the majority of end users.

Is this something that would require scheduling (i.e. to insert the balancing journals the following day)? Or could both sets of journals be inserted in one go?

I’m just trying to understand what’s involved in terms of the development side.

Hi Glenn, most products have a tick box “Reverse” if that’s selected then it will automatically copy to current journal for the next but reverse the cr / dr. As most accountants will use a journal on last day of accounts to place hold certain prepayments /accruals which need to reverse so when such expense arrives it keeps the expense it nets from the reversal. Another to do it could be to allow date selection on each journal line rather than the journal it’s self? But unless the user actually choose a different date, it can cascade down with the first lines date automatically? Thank you.

Date selection per journal line is a significant deviation from what we have at the moment (i.e. more development time). We’d also need additional validation to ensure date sets are balancing. If there were a stronger demand for this we could explore that route further.

Otherwise I was looking to see if there was a simpler way in which this could be implemented. Maybe by just ticking a box to have the whole set of journals reversed on the next day.

Ticking a box that reverses the next day would be perfect.

I agree that this is a very helpful feature in any accounting system. However, it should not add too much programming to have a reversing date field, and I would support that. Although if it were to generate the reverse as the next day, then a button ‘View reverse journal’ which took you immediately to that journal would allow you to change the date there and then rather than forget.

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I agree that this would be a useful feature, saving both time and reducing the possibility of error. Obviously there needs to be a suitable flag/warning to ensure that the user knows that the journal will reverse on the following day and that the correct type has been used.

Also, would it be possible to import a journal? (The Opening Balance journal is a specific example that is available.) A standard period-end task is to review accruals/prepayments etc. to bring an appropriate economic value into the accounts. Often there will be calculations (e.g. 11 months’ of a year’s insurance premium) so spreadsheets such as Excel would be used. Thus a CSV import file would be simple to generate.

Of course, the CSV file could also assist with reversing entries.

Just to let you know, we will start work on this feature within the next 2 weeks. I will update you in due course.

Although this is not something we’re looking at right now, it could be looked at in the future. We do currently allow opening balances to be imported from CSV and there is a tool to translate from a different chart of accounts (see here for details).

If we were to develop a more generic import for regular journals, would you be including a column for QF nominal codes, or would you require the option to manually map as we do on the OB imports?

I think the imported journals would probably be for ‘experts’ and thus it is reasonable to assume the user knows the appropriate QF code. It may be worth having the [CSV] format copy the normal journal input: i.e.
Header of Journal Name, date (obtained from system) and journal type (normal, reversing?)
Line items of:
Nominal Code
Description
Notes
Debit [GBP]
Credit [GBP]
Obviously validation will be needed to ensure sum of debits equals sum of credits and that nominal codes exist in Chart of Accounts.
One thing to watch will be rounding of values as a careless user could calculate a debit, say, of £123.3333333
Kind regards.

This is great, look forward to it. Importing journals would be great.

@xloganm15 @Hudges @AndyAtSohn

The journal entry system now allows you to specify an auto-reverse date.

We have more information on this new feature here.

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Thank you this. However after some testing it seems that you can’t set the reversing element in the past is that correct? The purpose of the faculty is so thatyear end or month end journals can be posted with reversing affect on e.g. 1st of the new month or year. But if the date of when month end or year end is being completed usually the day the journal is being prepared then the reversing element is already past? So that would trigger a manual 2nd reversing to journal to be created anyway. Unfortunately no gain in the format. It’s interesting to know if the feature was intentionally design this way? Thank you.

You can create a journal with any date, past or future, so you’d date the original journal on the last day of the period in question (even if you’re actually completing it later).

Or do you mean the reversal date is limited to after today rather than after the original journal date? If so that definitely sounds like a bug.

Yeah when I select the reversing date, it blocks out current day any days prior. It doesn’t woork like it does on other system. It’s actually schedules the journal to reverse. So if the day planned for running is past. It won’t work. The several systems I use is just posts both journals there and then.

Hi @xloganm15 @ian_roberts

I’ve referred this to our development team to take a look. We’ll update you as soon as we can

I apologise we had to revisit this as the scheduling for reversals obviously doesn’t work when the reversals are pre-dated.

We’ve now deployed an update that will simply lodge the reversals instantly with the date specified (no scheduling). The reversing journals are always linked to the parent journal and cannot be modified independently, any change to the parent will always filter to the reversing entry automatically. The reversing entry will be deleted if the reversing date is cleared and saved on the parent journal.