The general journal is where double entry bookkeeping entries are recorded by debiting one or more accounts and crediting another one or more accounts with the same total amount. The total amount debited and the total amount credited should always be equal, thereby ensuring the accounting equation is maintained.
Depending on the business's accounting information system, specialized journals may be used in conjunction with the general journal for record-keeping. In such case, use of the general journal may be limited to non-routine and adjusting entries.
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Famous quotes containing the words general and/or journal:
“‘A thing is called by a certain name because it instantiates a certain universal’ is obviously circular when particularized, but it looks imposing when left in this general form. And it looks imposing in this general form largely because of the inveterate philosophical habit of treating the shadows cast by words and sentences as if they were separately identifiable. Universals, like facts and propositions, are such shadows.”
—David Pears (b. 1921)
“How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts—I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if a stranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious—insolent & whimsical I must appear!—one moment flighty and half mad,—the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)