Journal entries
Post a manual adjusting entry, and how corrections post to the ledger.
Most of the time you never touch a journal entry directly — you record a sale, an expense, or a payment, and Kiravy posts the balanced entry behind it (see How the general ledger works). But sometimes you need to book an adjustment by hand: an accrual, a depreciation charge, a reclassification between accounts. That's what the manual journal entry form is for.
Open it from any client → Journal entries → New entry.
The New entry form
A journal entry is a set of lines that move money between accounts. You give the entry a date and a memo, then add at least two lines:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Date | Required. The date the entry takes effect — this is what decides which period it lands in. |
| Memo | A short description of what the adjustment is for. Shows on the entry and in reports. |
| Account | On each line — searchable dropdown of the client's chart of accounts. Active codes only. |
| Debit | The amount on the left side of that account. |
| Credit | The amount on the right side of that account. |
Each line carries either a debit or a credit, never both, and the amount must be positive. Add as many lines as the adjustment needs, but you always need at least two — a journal entry with a single line can't balance.
The live balance indicator
As you fill in lines, Kiravy shows a running total of debits and credits at the bottom of the form, with a clear indicator of whether the two sides match. The moment your debits equal your credits, it turns green.
The Save button stays disabled until they balance. You can't post an entry where the two sides disagree — that's the ledger's first rule, and it's enforced both here in the form and again on the server when you save. If the sides are off by even one cent, the entry is rejected with a reminder that debits and credits must balance.
If you're used to thinking in plain money-in / money-out terms, the quick rule for the two most common adjustments: to increase an expense or asset you put the amount in the debit column; to increase revenue, a liability, or equity you put it in the credit column. The other line is whatever account the adjustment comes from or goes to.
How corrections work
Once an entry is posted, its debits and credits are never quietly edited in place — that would erase the audit trail. Instead, Kiravy corrects the books in one of two ways, and which one happens depends on what you're doing.
Editing a transaction supersedes its entry
When you go back and edit a transaction — change the amount, the account, the tax — Kiravy doesn't patch the original journal entry. It hides the old entry and posts a fresh one with the new values. Reports show only the new figure. The old entry is retained behind the scenes (nothing is ever truly deleted), it's just no longer counted.
You don't do anything special for this — it happens automatically when you save the edit. The net effect is that your reports always reflect the latest version, while the history of what changed stays intact.
Voiding a document posts a reversal
When you void a document — cancel an invoice or bill, or refund one that's already been paid — Kiravy posts a reversal: a mirror entry that flips every debit and credit from the original.
The difference from a supersede is that here both the original and the reversal stay on the books. They net to zero, so the document no longer affects your balances, but the full "raised, then cancelled" trail remains visible. This is the auditor-friendly way to undo something that already happened, and it's why a reversal can be dated in the current month even when the original document sits in a locked period.
This is also why a posted invoice can't be edited — to change it you cancel and re-issue — and why a paid invoice can't simply be cancelled. To unwind a paid document you issue a refund, which reverses both the invoice and the payment together. See Payments & refunds.
What's next
- How the general ledger works — the double-entry engine behind every entry
- Trial balance — see your manual entries land in the report that proves the books balance
- Locking accounting periods — seal a closed month so nothing back-dated slips in