Accounting All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 3

Using Journal Entries and Ledgers

In This Chapter

Becoming familiar with journals and the general ledger

Writing journal entries

Balancing the books

Saving time and reducing errors with accounting software

Accounting involves a great deal of record keeping or booking — the process of recording accounting transactions. Some booking tasks involve basic data entry done by clerks. Junior accountants or bookkeepers may perform other booking tasks, such as preparing journal entries — the accountant's way to enter transactions into the accounting system. (For example, the accountant records any bank charges shown on the company's monthly bank statement.) You find out more about journal entries later in this chapter.

Whether you'll need to book journal entries during your accounting career depends on a couple factors. If you work for a small company in a one- or two-person accounting department, you could very well be the controller (the chief accounting officer for the business) and be doing the journal entries yourself. If, instead, you work for a large accounting firm that ...