Journal Types
Journal types are a single character letter between A and T, allowing up to 20 of them. They are defined at client class level. There are also journal types U and V which are system-defined.
Journal types are attached to the lines of entries and are visible in Postings. The first two lines of the entry have no journal type. It is only entered on the third line of the entry and above. For historical reasons, journal types do not apply to Journals, despite a name that suggests otherwise.
The journal type itself has three fields:
- Description - A description of the Journal type.
- Relates To - This field can be UK tax, Foreign tax or Neither. (‘UK tax’ should be termed domestic tax’).
- Default Nominal - This field is only available if Relates To field is set to Neither.
Journal types serve four purposes:
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They can be used to produce reports in which the transactions are analysed by journal type. For instance, it might be desirable to produce a report of bank entries in which the entries are analysed into their column according to their journal type, rather like a manual cash book. This could be done through Transaction Reporter. However most users, if they needed a report like this, would produce it by analysing using the Nominal account code.
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They can be used to speed up Data Entry because if a journal type which is not tax-related is entered in Postings, the system can automatically fill in the Default Nominal account from the journal type, which saves a few keystrokes. However this is rarely done.
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On investment capital entries, journal types U and V are used by the system as follows:
- U - The profit or loss on disposal.
- V - The accrued income, if it is being recorded for accounting purposes.
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On investment income entries the system pays attention to whether the journal type is for UK tax, foreign tax or neither. This affects how the income is shown on the Income and Acquisitions schedule and on the tax return if CCH Trust Accounts is linked to CCH Personal Tax. This is by far the most important use of journal types.
Most users set up 3 journal types as follows:
- A - Domestic tax
- B - Foreign tax
- C - Collection Charges
A and B are then set up in the client class investment defaults. On investment income entries you tell the system whether domestic tax, foreign tax or collection charges are being entered by the journal type they enter. On other entries you just enter C where requested.