Import journals from Excel

If you have many entries, for example when you move your books from another system, import them from an Excel file instead of typing each manual journal. The page can also load a set of sample journals so you can see what the financial reports look like.

Go to Accounting section › Import Journals. You need permission to add journals; to post them you also need the Journal approve permission.

Steps

1. Click Download Template. The file has two sheets:
   • Journals: empty, with the column names in the first row. Fill this one. The LedgerCode and LedgerName columns offer your accounts in drop-downs.
   • Sample: a small pharmacy's journals, with a journal for every account of your chart, to see how the rows are filled and to copy from.
2. Fill one row per journal line on the Journals sheet. Don't rename the column names in the first row.
3. Choose the Project (used for the journal and all its lines; to split a journal between projects, edit its lines afterwards) and Save journals as: Post (the default: posted to the ledger straight away) or Draft (saved, not posted; post them later from Manual Journals).
4. Upload the file (.xlsx, up to 5 MB and 5000 rows). Every row is checked straight away and shows Ready or the problems found, for example LedgerCode: Account not found. (1199). Nothing is saved yet.
5. When every row is ready, click Import. All journals are saved together. If anything fails, nothing is saved.

If a row needs an account, currency or financial year that doesn't exist yet, add it in the app, then click Check again. You don't need to upload the file again. To fix anything else, correct the file and upload it again.

How lines become journals

Rows with the same JournalNo are one journal, for example rows J1, J1, J1 and then J2, J2. The JournalNo only groups the lines in your file: each journal gets its real journal number automatically, in date order, in the same format as a journal entered by hand.

Each journal must have at least two lines, and its debits and credits must be equal.

The journal's Date, ReferenceNo, Narration, Currency and ExchangeRate are taken from its first line that has them. You can repeat them on every line or leave them empty on the other lines, but they must not differ.

Columns

Only child accounts take entries. A parent account, one that has sub-accounts, is only a group, so a row that uses one is refused with "This is a parent account (a group): use one of its sub-accounts." If a name matches more than one account, use the LedgerCode.

Type amounts with a dot for decimals (1500.50).

One currency per journal

Every journal has one currency. With multi-currency off, the Currency and ExchangeRate columns are not in the template, and every journal is in your base currency. With it on, each journal can have its own currency; see Currencies.

Checks

• Negative cash: posted journals are checked in date order against the cash already posted. With Negative Cash off in Preferences, a journal that would take a cash account below zero is refused.
• Closed period: a date in a closed financial year or a closed month is refused.
• Plan: the import is blocked when your journals plus the journals in the file would be more than your plan allows.

Imported journals don't ask the budget question that the journal page asks. Check the budget report after a large import.

Sample data and sample reports

Load sample data shows the sample journals in the preview: two months of a small pharmacy, with a journal for every child account of your chart and Reference No SAMPLE. For example: medicines bought for cash and on credit from the drug wholesaler, cash sales of medicines, medicines supplied to a hospital on credit, the cost of medicines sold, staff salaries, shop rent, refrigerators and a delivery motorbike, a bank loan, and expired medicines written off. Most journals are against cash; entries that don't move cash use the fitting account instead (Accounts Payable against Purchases, Accumulated depreciation against Depreciation Expense, and so on). Accounts your company added itself get a general pharmacy line. The amounts are in Iraqi dinars. The journals start with the owner's capital, so cash never goes below zero and ends at IQD 1,000,000. Click Import to post them, then open the Trial Balance, Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet from the links on the page to see the reports with data.

Load sample data is on free plans (Demo and Training) only. On a paid plan the button is hidden; the template's Sample sheet is still there to copy rows from.

If your base currency is not IQD, the sample journals are in IQD when multi-currency is on and IQD is one of your currencies. Otherwise they are in your base currency, with the amounts divided by 1000.

The sample journals are real journals in your books. Import them only in a company you use for practice, or delete them afterwards from Manual Journals: they show SAMPLE in the Reference No column. The sample needs the cash account set in Ledger configuration.