Journal entries are one of the most important skills accountants and financial analysts must master because they are the first step to building proper financial statements. A journal is a company's official book which contains all the transactions recorded in chronological order. When a transaction happens within the company, accountants will have to record the impacts on at least two accounts in the journal. In every journal entry, the debits and credits amounts must be equal so that the balance sheet will be balanced (assets = liabilities + shareholders' equity). Accountants should always determine the following factors when doing journal entries:

1. Accounts that are affected by the transaction
2. Whether the account should be increased or decreased
3. What would be the change in each account
4. Ensure that the accounting equation is always balanced

Recording entries is critical in the process of creating financial reports, which present a company's financial statements to the management, investors, and the government. Properly recording journal entry and tracking them in T-accounts help companies produce the accurate financial statements.

Using This Template

This Excel template will provide a structured skeleton for you to record the amount of credits and debits for transactions. You can download this template and modify the accounts and respective amounts to customize your own accounting record. Keep in mind that for every entry, at least two accounts must be recorded. The amount of credits and debits should balance out each other. This template is a useful tool for beginner accountants and financial analysts to neatly enter the entries into an Excel spreadsheet.

Learn More About Journal Entries

Read CFI's complete guide to understand the concept and see examples of recording journal entries for various transactions. Moreover, CFI Marketplace has plenty of accounting templates to help you excel the daily accounting and finance duties at work!