A journal is a financial adjustment used to correct the balance (credit or debit) of an Invoice or Account in IBIS.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


When do I use a journal?

 The most common scenarios for using the journal function are: 

  • An invoice created in a previous accounting period is incorrect, meaning you can no longer void the invoice.
  • You are an agent and have sold reservations on behalf of an operator who has never invoiced you and you have decided to write off your debts to this operator that are over a year old.
  • You have been using the Reservations or Ticketing modules for some time, and now need to clean up historic records so you can start using the Accounts module.


We do not recommend using a journal to fix mistakes on bookings that have been invoiced, as these should be remedied by reversing the original posting, then editing the booking and reposting the difference through to accounts as a new invoice.


Journal an invoice

You can create a journal to settle or part settle the balance of an invoice provided there is an outstanding balance on the invoice.

  1. From the Accounts List screen, highlight the account and select the Transactions tab to select the invoice and then click the Functions button.
  2. Select Journal selected invoice from the options
  3. You will be prompted to enter a reason for the journal in the Note field (this is required, and must be more than 10 characters long).
  4. The Invoice date is the date the journal will show as being posted to the Account.
  5. Click Apply when finished.
  6. The journal will now have status = settled and a balance of $0. The invoice will be settled by the amount of the journal, if its balance was reduced to $0 its status will also become settled.

    Apply Journal


Journal invoices in bulk

When you have a bit of tidy up work to do clearing historic invoices, the bulk journal function is a real timesaver.

  1. Open the Manage Invoices screen
  2. Select the invoices to journal by highlighting the rows. 
  3. Click the Tools button and select Bulk journal selected invoices.
  4. Confirm all of the items that you want to journal are ticked in the screen below.
  5. You must enter a note for the journal.
  6. Your original items will be cross settled with the journals that you have applied.

Bulk Journals


Create a debit or credit note on an account

You may need to apply a debit or credit note (journal) against a specific account to change or settle the balance of that account. The most common scenarios used for applying a debit or credit note are:

  • You are writing off an unpaid invoice after a specified period of time before closing the account.
  • You are settling a bad debt.
  1. Open the Account List screen.
  2. Choose the Account that you want to make the debit/credit journal for and select the Transactions tab.
  3. Click the Functions button and select Create journal – debit/credit note.
  4. A window will pop up where you fill out the $ amount (to apply a credit to the account put the amount in brackets)
  5. Enter the reason in the Note field (this is required and must be more than 10 characters long). The Invoice date is the date it will show as being posted. 
  6. Click on Apply and the journal will appear in the account. If required, you can cross settle the journal against an invoice or another journal on this account.


Delete a journal

Once a journal has been created, you cannot delete or void the journal. You can create a NEW journal, for the opposite amount and then use the cross settle function in the Account List screen to settle the balances of both journals to $0.


Cross settle a journal

Use this function to cross settle two transactions for the same account, they can be in different periods and they can be journals or invoices. Both transactions must be of the opposite signs (i.e. one is negative, one positive) however they do not necessarily need to be for the same value.

  1. Open the Account List screen from the Accounts & Contacts menu.
  2. Select the appropriate account from the list and click the transactions tab.
  3. Select the two invoices/journals to cross settle (must be of opposite value). Selecting one, then hold down the CTRL key to select the second.
    • If a credit is for more than one invoice, select one invoice and complete the steps below, then repeat for the next invoice.  
  4. Click on the Functions button, then cross settle invoices.
  5. The two invoices/journals will be applied to each other. If the resulting balance is $0, the status becomes Settled.


Reverse a cross settled journal

If you have cross settled the wrong invoice or journal, you can fix this as long as you have not rolled the period.

  1. Highlight the selected invoices/journals again
  2. Click Functions, then Reverse cross settled invoices


Report on journals

All journals created can be reported on in the Accounts Reports screen and will appear in the transaction tab of the Account List screen.