This Free Online Accounting Training Tutorial on Special Journal will help you to learn:
- Meaning & Definition of Special Journal
- Different Types of Special Journal
- Advantages/Benefits of Special Journal
People are generally familiar with general journal which is two column format general journals. General journal transfers the transaction to the general ledger. But general journal basically used by the small companies. Larger companies have to record many transaction, they have to deal with many companies. The general journal can be proved sometimes insufficient for larger companies to record the transactions. In order to properly record the transaction, the big companies use special journal.
Special journal is distinct type of journal which records similar types of transactions. For example: all accounts payable, all accounts receivable, all cash payment, all cash receivable etc. The special journal could be manually recorded or computerized but both maintain same accounting rules and principles. Companies use special journal according to their transaction which are frequently occurred in their company.
If any company could not record any transaction in special journal or if any transaction does not occur frequently in a company then the company will record this transaction in general journal. For example: ABC Company use special journals like sales journal, cash journal, purchase journal for recording its day to day transactions. In case of writing sales return, purchase return they use general journal. All modification like correction, adjustments etc are also done in general journal. Basically they don™t maintain any special journal for those transactions as they don™t happen frequently in their business. But if sales or purchase return is common in any business then it will be better to maintain special sales return and purchase return journal.
There are also some advantages to maintain special journal such as:
- In general journal all types of journals are recorded chronologically. So in order to know about any particular account you have to go through all transactions. But because of special one can find all related transaction in a particular book.
- Special Journal allows recording transactions in different journals at the same time which helps proper utilization of manpower. It also saves time.
- Special journal also provide benefits of posting transaction as monthly basis rather than daily
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