A Journal Entry is how anything that is not an Invoice or a payment gets into your books. Depreciation, an accrual, a correction, an owner putting money in — none of those arrive through the front door, so you write them yourself.
This guide covers where Journal Entries live, the three fields at the top that decide where the entry lands, why the variance has to be zero, and the AI Assistant that will draft the whole thing from a sentence.
Go to Accounting › Journal Entry › Add Journal Entry. The list you land on is your Journal Entry History, and every entry you post appears there.
If you see a warning about no Chart of Accounts, stop. Copy a sample chart into the entity before going any further.
The accounting pages stay empty until you do, because an entry has nowhere to post to. It takes a minute and it is the single most common reason someone thinks the accounting is broken on day one.
Business Entity. Which set of books this belongs to. If you run more than one Business Entity, this is the only thing deciding where the entry lands.
Post date. The date the entry lands in your books — not today's date. This is the field people get wrong. An entry written in April for a March accrual is dated March, or your March reports will not include it.
Entry number. Fills itself in. Leave it alone.
Internoodle refuses any Journal Entry dated on or before your last Year End close date, and says so: “Journal Entries before the last Year End close date are not allowed.”
That is a safeguard, not a bug. Once a year is closed the statements have been issued and the balances carried forward; letting a new entry appear behind that line would put your books out of step with what you have already filed. If the entry genuinely belongs in the closed year, that is a conversation with your Accountant, not a date you nudge.
Each line takes an account, a description, and an amount in either the debit or the credit column. Add as many lines as the entry needs.
Watch the variance. It has to be zero before the entry will post — debits equal to credits, which is the whole point of double entry. A variance that will not close is almost always a single amount typed into the wrong column.
Type what happened in plain English: “bought office supplies for five hundred, from bank”. It drafts the entry — office supplies debited, the bank account credited.
Change one word — “from shareholder” instead of “from bank” — and it finds the shareholder loan account and redraws the entry. It is reading your own Chart of Accounts, not guessing at standard account names.
The AI drafts; it never posts on your behalf. Read the accounts it chose, check the variance is zero, and post it yourself. The entry then appears in your Journal Entry History, posted and dated.
Date it when it happened, not when you wrote it. The post date is the only thing that decides which month and which year a Journal Entry belongs to. Everything downstream — statements, Year End, comparatives — follows from it.
Write a description you will understand in a year. “Adj” means nothing at Year End. “Accrue March hydro, invoice received April” answers the question before your Accountant asks it.
Let the AI draft the ones you find fiddly. Shareholder transactions and accruals are where people hesitate over which account to use. Describing it in a sentence and reading back the draft is faster than second-guessing the chart.
Check the variance before you go looking for a bug. If it will not post, the numbers almost certainly do not balance yet. The variance figure tells you by exactly how much.
Post to the right entity. Each Business Entity keeps its own books. An entry in the wrong one is not wrong data, it is data in the wrong company.
Journal Entries are the manual half of your books. The automatic half arrives on its own: raise an Invoice and it posts itself, record a payment and that posts too, with no second entry to write.
Everything you post here flows into your financial statements and into Year End. That is why the post date and the entity matter more than anything else on the form — between them they decide which set of books, and which year, the entry belongs to.
Describe the transaction the way you would say it out loud:
“Bought office supplies for five hundred, from bank”
“Bought office supplies for five hundred, from shareholder”
“Record depreciation of twelve hundred on equipment”
It reads your Chart of Accounts and picks real accounts from it, which is why the shareholder version finds your shareholder loan account rather than inventing one.
It drafts and stops. Nothing is saved until you read it and post it yourself.
“Journal Entries before the last Year End close date are not allowed.” Your post date falls on or before a closed Year End. Check the date — usually it is a typo in the year. If the entry really does belong in the closed year, speak to your Accountant first.
It will not let me post. The variance is not zero. Debits and credits have to match exactly.
The accounting pages are empty. No Chart of Accounts has been copied into that entity yet. Copy a sample chart and they fill up.
My entry is not on the statements. Check the post date and the Business Entity. An entry dated outside the period, or posted to another entity, is filed correctly — just not where you are looking.
The AI picked an account I would not have. It chooses from your chart, so the account exists. Change it on the draft before posting; nothing is committed until you post.
Anything that is not an Invoice or a payment. Depreciation, accruals, corrections, opening balances, an owner putting money into the business.
Because that Year End is closed. The statements have been issued and the balances carried forward, so a new entry behind that line would put your books out of step with what you have already filed. It is a deliberate safeguard.
The difference between your debits and your credits. It has to be zero. If it is not, one amount is in the wrong column or a line is missing.
The date the transaction belongs to, not the day you are typing it. That is what decides which month and year it lands in.
No. It drafts and stops. You read the accounts it chose and post it yourself.
Yes. It reads your own Chart of Accounts and picks from it, which is why the same sentence produces a different entry once you change “from bank” to “from shareholder”.
No, and that is the point. An Invoice posts to your books on its own. Journal Entries are only for the things that have no other way in.
Yes. Each Business Entity keeps its own books, and the entity you pick at the top of the form decides which set this entry joins.
A Journal Entry is how anything that is not an Invoice or a payment gets into your books. Accounting, Journal Entry, Add Journal Entry.
If you see a warning about no Chart of Accounts, stop and copy a sample chart first. The accounting pages stay empty until you do.
Now, three things at the top. Your Business Entity. The post date, which is the date the entry lands in your books, not today’s date. And the entry number, which fills itself in.
One thing to know. If your Year End is already closed, the system will not let you post into it. That is deliberate.
Then the lines. An account, a description, and an amount in the debit or the credit column. Watch the variance. It has to be zero before it will post.
Or let the AI do it. Type what happened in plain English. Bought office supplies for five hundred, from bank. It drafts the entry. Office supplies debited, the bank account credited.
Change one word. From shareholder, instead of from bank. It finds the shareholder loan account and redraws the entry. It is reading your Chart of Accounts, not guessing.
Read the draft, then post it. And there it is in your Journal Entry history, posted and dated.
Free plan · no credit card · set up in a couple of minutes.
Start free