Journal Entries

Journal entries are the foundation of your books. Every financial event — a sale, expense, accrual, or adjustment — is recorded as balanced debit and credit lines. Most entries are generated automatically from invoices, bills, and bank activity. This page is where you create manual adjustments, review what posted, and attach supporting documents.

Key capabilities

• Balanced multi-line entry — debits must equal credits; all amounts are positive
• Manual or AI creation — type lines or draft from a plain-English prompt, then review before posting
• Edit entries by adding, changing, or removing lines while staying balanced
• Reverse Entry posts an offsetting entry on a date you choose, with a reason; the original stays for the audit trail
• Duplicate Entry copies the lines and date into a new entry
• Tag lines with a project via Add Tags (the button appears when you have a project to pick)
• File attachments (PDF, PNG, JPG) and comment threads per entry
• Source audit trail links back to invoices, bills, credit memos, and more
• Bulk CSV/Excel import with preview-and-validate, plus a Template with your chart of accounts
• Export the list, and delete one or many entries (with a warning for system-created ones)
• Filterable list by ledger, source, creation method, date, and search (by entry number, description, memo, account, or amount)

How it works

You add debit and credit lines against ledger accounts. DayZero validates that debits equal credits before saving, and an unbalanced entry is rejected with the exact totals. Entries dated in a closed accounting period are refused.

flowchart TD
  start["New entry"] --> mode{"Manual or AI?"}
  mode -->|"Manual"| lines["Add lines"]
  mode -->|"AI prompt"| draft["AI drafts lines"]
  draft --> lines
  lines --> check{"Balanced?"}
  check -->|"No"| lines
  check -->|"Yes"| posted["Posted to ledger"]

How to use it

1. Open Journal Entries to see date, description, source, and totals.
2. Click Create Entry with AI, then choose Manual Entry to pick an account, set Debit or Credit, and enter the amount for each line. The entry must balance before saving.
3. Or choose Describe It (AI) and describe the entry in plain English; review the drafted date, description, and lines under Review before posting.
4. Open an entry to attach supporting documents and leave comments for the audit trail.
5. To correct an entry, click Edit and change lines while keeping debits equal to credits, or use Reverse Entry to cancel it with an offsetting entry.
6. Filter by ledger, creation method (AI Created or Manually Created), source, or date range.
7. For bulk loads, click Template, fill it in, click Upload, review the preview, then post.

Pro tips

• Every line amount is positive — direction is Debit vs Credit, not sign.
• Filter by Manually Created to isolate hand-typed adjustments from system-generated entries.
• Use the source filter to trace automatic entries (invoices, bills, bank feeds, fixed assets, …).
• The bulk template includes a Ledgers reference sheet — match ledger name or account number.
• Always review the upload preview first — it flags unbalanced entries before you commit.
• Prefer Reverse Entry over delete for reviewed entries, and attach source documents to adjusting entries for faster month-end review.

In-depth guide

Entry anatomy

Creation method and source

An entry dated in a closed or locked accounting period cannot be created or edited, and reversing needs both the original's date and the reversal date to be in open periods. An entry that an invoice, credit memo, or other record points to cannot be deleted until that link is removed, and deleting a system-created entry does not update the document it came from, so prefer reversing those. Bulk import groups rows by entry number or shared date + description; flexible column aliases (Date, Ledger Name, Debit, Credit, Dr, Cr) are accepted.