All You Need To Know About Sales Journal Entry Pros and Cons

How you record the transaction depends on whether your customer pays with cash or uses credit. Read on to learn how to make a cash sales journal entry and credit sales journal entry. When a piece of merchandise or inventory is sold on credit, two business transactions need to be record. First, the accounts receivable account must increase by the amount of the sale and the revenue account must increase by the same amount.

1. Later, when the customer does pay, you can reverse the entry and decrease your Accounts Receivable account and increase your Cash account.
2. Journal entries are the very first step in the accounting cycle.
3. Sales Journal Entries are a valuable tool for businesses of all sizes.
4. In this way, each account receivable is shown at its full amount.

Using a sales journal significantly decreases the amount of work needed to record transactions in a manual system. Although each transaction must be posted to the subsidiary Accounts Receivable ledger, only the totals for the month have to be posted to the General Ledger accounts. A sales journal entry records a cash or credit sale to a customer. It does more than record the total money a business receives from the transaction.

What are the advantages of using a sales journal?

This way they can easily find information and keep an eye out for any possible accounting errors. The total bill https://business-accounting.net/ is $240, plus a 5% sales tax, which is $12. The customer charges a total of $252 on credit ($240 + $12).

Example of the Sales Journal Entry

Because adjusting entries are made at the end of the period. So, for instance, if the period ends on December 31st, you would do the reverse the next day, on January 1st. The next step is to translate them into debit and credit.

What is a Sales Journal Entry?

Finally, if your state or local governments impose a sales tax, then your entry will show an increase in your sales tax liability. But it’s still important to make sure that there’s an accounting record of every sale you make. This way, you can balance your books and report your income accurately. Efiling Income Tax Returns(ITR) is made easy with Clear platform. Just upload your form 16, claim your deductions and get your acknowledgment number online.

If your sales returns and allowances account is high compared to your revenue account, you may be offering too many discounts or have a product quality issue. So you give them a discount of 20% to make up for the inconvenience, making the final sale price $40. We’ll also assume a 10% sales tax and a $15 cost of goods sold.

On August 1, a customer purchases 56 tablet computers on credit. The payment terms are 2/10, n/30, and the invoice is dated August 1. The software will notice and won’t save the journal entry.

In accounting language, this is a transaction that simultaneously affects two accounts. The cash account, which decreases since you’re paying, and the equipment account, which increases from buying the product. Creating a journal entry is the process of recording and tracking any transaction that your business conducts. Journal entries help transform business transactions into useful data.

Assets increase when debited, so Equipment will be debited for $1,000. Expenses decrease when credited, so Cash will be credited for $500. Liabilities increase when credited, so Accounts Payable will also be credited for $500. Auditors use financial reports to analyze how transactions are impacting the business. You’ll also need to increase your Revenue account to show that your business is bringing in the amount the customer owes. In the next section, we’ll talk more about what each debit and credit means for the sale entry.

CBS returns the printers to their inventory at the original cost. The following entries show the sale and subsequent return. On September 1, CBS sold 250 landline telephones to a customer who paid with cash. On September 3, the customer discovers that 40 of the phones are the wrong color and returns the phones to CBS in exchange for a full refund. CBS determines that the returned merchandise can be resold and returns the merchandise to inventory at its original cost. The following entries occur for the sale and subsequent return.

Second, the inventory has to be removed from the inventory account and the cost of the inventory needs to be recorded. So a typical sales journal entry debits the accounts receivable account for the sale price and credits revenue account for the sales price. Cost of goods sold is debited for the price the company paid for the inventory and the inventory account is credited for the same price.

We strongly encourage you to start if you’re not already using them. If the person documenting the transaction makes a mistake, the wrong deal is reflected in the company’s books of accounts. To track how much money you’ve made from selling products/services, add up all your sales and divide them by 12 to determine how much money you have per month. In addition to software, a print sales journal can also be used. On September 8, the customer discovers that 20 more phones from the September 1 purchase are slightly damaged. The customer decides to keep the phones but receives a sales allowance from CBS of $10 per phone.

Instead, you collect sales tax at the time of purchase, and you make payments to the government quarterly or monthly, depending on your state and local rules. As the sale of assets results in an inflow of cash, the balance in the cash account or debit balance increases. Simultaneously, due to the outflow of assets, the balance in the asset account will decrease. You only record COGS at the end of an accounting period to show inventory sold. It’s important to know how to record COGS in your books to accurately calculate profits.

Your credit sales journal entry should debit your Accounts Receivable account, which is the amount the customer has charged to their credit. And, you will credit your Sales Tax Payable and Revenue accounts. Like in a cash sales journal entry, you likely also will deal with sales tax. Sales journals are an integral part of transactions in a business. In most scenarios, credit sales are preferred to keep up with the digitally dynamic trend. However, if there is any cash sale made, cash and sales accounts are created for the same.

In the second entry, COGS increases (debit), and Merchandise Inventory-Phones decreases (credit) by $15,000 (250 × $60), the cost of the sale. Now, there is software that automatically enters the day, time, and even the name of the goods sold. There are two sides to every accounting book; it is the same for a sales journal. The sale of the LED light would bring 100 Dollars to the company. This cash would be noted on the credit side, whereas the LED light would be noted on the Debit side.