Day Book, Ledger and Journals

These three screens show every entry in your accounts:

• Day Book: every voucher, for all accounts, in date order.
• Ledger: the story of one account, with its balance after every entry.
• Journals: entries you make by hand, such as depreciation or moving an amount to the right account.

Open them from Books ▸ Accounts. They are the first three tabs.

A voucher is one entry: a sale, a purchase bill, a payment, a receipt, a contra (cash to bank or bank to cash) or a journal. Every voucher has a Dr (debit) side and a Cr (credit) side, and the two sides are always equal.

Why it matters for filing

Your income tax return (ITR) is filed from your Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet. Your GST returns use your sales, your purchases and the GST on them. All of these are added up from the vouchers on these screens.

• Day Book is where you check that nothing is missing or entered twice before you file.
• Ledger is where you check one figure. "How much do I owe Kumar Packaging?" "Is my cash correct?" "What did I spend on electricity this year?"
• Journals is where you make the adjustments your accountant asks for at the year end, such as depreciation. Without them, the profit in your ITR is wrong.

Day Book and Ledger: what is the difference?

	Day Book	Ledger
Question it answers	"What was entered on these days?"	"What happened in this one account, and what is its balance?"
What it lists	Every voucher, all accounts	Only vouchers that touch the account you choose
Balance	None	Opening balance, balance after each line, closing balance

Example. You pay Kumar Packaging ₹5,000 in cash:

• the Day Book shows one line: Payment, ₹5,000;
• the Kumar Packaging ledger shows ₹5,000 in Debit, and what you owe goes down by ₹5,000;
• the Cash ledger shows ₹5,000 in Credit, and your cash goes down by ₹5,000.

The same voucher shows once in the Day Book and once in the ledger of each account it touches.

Day Book

Choosing what to see

Control	What it does
From and To	The days to show.
Voucher type	Sales, Purchase, Payment, Receipt, Contra, Journal or Debit Note.
Show	All vouchers, only Altered vouchers (changed after they were entered), only those not altered, or Cancelled vouchers.
Show narration	Shows the note written on each voucher.
Detailed view	Shows each Dr and Cr line of the voucher, with the amount.

The list

Each row shows Date, Particulars (the main account), Vch Type, Vch No., Debit (₹) and Credit (₹). When a voucher has more than one account on one side, Particulars reads Rent and 2 more. Total for the period is at the bottom.

Two marks can appear next to Particulars:

• Altered: the voucher was changed after it was entered. The Edit Log shows what changed.
• Cancelled: the voucher was cancelled. It stays in the list with amount 0.00.

Click a row to open the voucher.

Actions on each row

Action	Shown for	What it does
Alter	Journals	Opens the journal to change it.
Duplicate	Journals	Opens a copy of the journal dated today.
Cancel	Journals	Cancels it. It stays listed as Cancelled.
Delete	Journals	Removes it from the lists.
Open in Purchase Bills, Open in Expenses, Open in Payments	Bills, expenses, payments, debit notes	Opens the screen where that voucher is changed.
Correct in Day Summary	Sales	Sales from your POS are corrected in Day Summary.
Edit Log	Every voucher	Shows who entered it and every change.

A voucher dated before your No entries before this date shows only Edit Log. See Year Close.

Add voucher, Print and Export

+ Add voucher opens the screen for a new Purchase Bill, Payment, Receipt, Contra, Journal or Debit Note. Print prints the list on screen. Export downloads it as Excel or PDF for your accountant.

Ledger

The screen is also called Ledger Vouchers. The top line shows the group the ledger sits in, for example Ledger Vouchers · under Cash-in-Hand.

Choosing what to see

Control	What it does
Ledger	The account, shown as Name (Group).
From and To	The period.
Entries	All entries, Debit entries only, or Credit entries only. The balances stay the same.
Vouchers / Monthly summary	Every voucher, or one line per month with its debit, credit and closing balance. Click a month to see its vouchers.
Show narration and Detailed view	As in the Day Book.

The four figures

Card	What it means
Opening balance	The balance on the first day of the period.
Debit	Total of the debit lines in the period.
Credit	Total of the credit lines in the period.
Closing balance	The balance on the last day. Dr or Cr tells you which side it is on.

With Vouchers chosen, the table shows each voucher with the Balance after it. At the bottom, Current total and Closing Balance. When a voucher has more than one other account, Particulars reads As per details; tick Detailed view to see each account.

What Dr and Cr mean for each kind of account

Account	Dr balance means	Cr balance means
Cash, bank	Money you have	Overdrawn: more paid out than came in
A supplier (Sundry Creditors)	You paid in advance	You owe the supplier
An expense (Rent, Wages)	What you spent	(rare) a refund larger than the expense
Sales	(rare) returns larger than sales	What you sold
GST payable (Output CGST, SGST)	(rare)	GST you owe the government
GST input (Input CGST, SGST, IGST)	GST credit you can claim	(rare)

Supplier ledgers

For a supplier, three buttons appear at the top: + Purchase Bill, Pay and Open bills, which lists the bills not yet fully paid. Print and Export work as in the Day Book.

Journals

A journal is a voucher you enter by hand. Owners use it for:

• depreciation on equipment at the year end,
• moving an amount booked to the wrong account,
• the owner taking money out of the business for personal use.

Sales, purchases, payments and expenses are not entered here. They come from their own screens.

The list shows Date, Vch No., Narration, Amount and Entered by. Tick Show cancelled to see cancelled journals. Click a journal to open it.

Entering a journal

Select + New Journal. The form shows the voucher number it will take.

1. Choose the Date. Reference no. is optional.
2. On each line choose Dr or Cr, the ledger, and the amount. The ledger's current balance is shown beside it.
3. Add lines with + Add line. Total debit must equal total credit; the form tells you the difference until they match.
4. Write a Narration: what the entry is for. It is required.
5. Select Save, or Save and print. Quit leaves without saving.

Example: depreciation. Dr Depreciation (Indirect Expenses) ₹2,500, Cr Kitchen Equipment (Fixed Assets) ₹2,500, narration Depreciation on kitchen equipment, October.

Changing a journal

Open the journal. Its panel shows the Dr and Cr lines, the narration, who entered it, and these buttons:

Button	What happens
Alter	Opens the form to change it. The voucher keeps its number.
Duplicate	A new journal with the same lines, dated today.
Cancel voucher	The journal stays in the lists marked Cancelled, at zero. Its number is kept.
Delete	The journal is removed from the lists. Its number is not reused.
Print	Prints the journal voucher.

Every alter, cancel and delete is kept in the Edit Log, with who did it, when, and the old and new values. GST law requires this (CGST Rule 56(8)).

What to do when something needs attention

You see	What it means	What to do
A figure in a ledger looks wrong	A voucher may be in the wrong account or entered twice.	Open the ledger, click the voucher, and correct it where it was entered.
Cash or a bank shows a Cr balance	More was paid out than came in, or a receipt is missing.	Check the Day Book for missing sales or receipts on those days.
A supplier shows Dr	You paid more than the bills entered, or a bill is missing.	Use Open bills and enter the missing bill in Purchases.
No Alter, Cancel or Delete on a voucher	It is dated before your No entries before this date.	Change the date in Year Close only if you really need to change an old year.
Save on a journal stays off	Debit and credit are not equal, a line has no ledger or amount, or the narration is empty.	Fix the line the form points to.