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Introduction to the Transaction Register

The Transaction register is where you should record the accounting events that occur every day in the life of the business. Each individual Transaction should be a record of a single accounting event. Transactions are double-sided and so should each include at least one debit posting and at least one credit posting. In a Transaction, the value of the debit postings must be the same as the value of the credit postings.

Depending on the nature of an individual Transaction, you will enter it directly to the Transaction register in the Nominal Ledger yourself or you will have it created remotely and automatically from the Sales and Purchase Ledgers, the Cash Book or the Stock module. Registers in these modules that can cause Transactions to be created are known as "Sub Systems".

You can decide which Transactions are to be entered directly to the Transaction register and which are to be created remotely from Sub Systems. To do this, use the Sub Systems setting. Typically, Transactions representing Sales and Purchase Invoices, Receipts and Payments will be generated remotely from the Sales and Purchase Ledgers. Transactions representing inward and outgoing movements of stock and movements of stock between warehouses will be generated remotely from the Stock module, and Transactions representing the movement of cash will be generated remotely from the Cash Book module. Transactions representing the registration and payment of expenses will be generated remotely from the Expenses module. You will enter other types of transactions directly to the Transaction register: these might include bank transfers, overhead costs, salaries etc.

When you save a Transaction, the postings that it contains will be committed to the Nominal Ledger immediately. After saving, it will usually not be possible to edit a Transaction, except through the use of correction functions. You can edit a Transaction if you are using the Use Preliminary Transactions option in the Transaction Settings setting, but this option cannot be used in many countries. An alternative is to enter a Simulation, as you can edit Simulations after saving and you can create Transactions from Simulations when you are satisfied that they are complete and correct.

Before you start entering Transactions, you must ensure that you have defined the current financial (accounting) year, using the Fiscal Years setting in the Nominal Ledger. You should also have defined a basic journal number series for Transactions using the Number Series - Transactions setting, also in the Nominal Ledger.

To open the Transaction register, first ensure you are in the Nominal Ledger. Then, if you are using Windows or macOS, click the [Registers] button in the Navigation Centre and double-click 'Transactions' in the resulting list. If you are using iOS or Android, tap the [Registers] button in the Navigation Centre and then tap 'Transactions' in the 'Registers' list. The 'Transactions: Browse' window will be opened, listing the Transactions that you have already entered.

Transactions that you entered directly to the Transaction register will be shown with their Transaction Numbers preceded by the financial year: the Transaction numbered 2019.1152 in the illustration is an example of this. The characters representing the financial year are taken from the Code field in the Fiscal Years setting in the Nominal Ledger. Transaction Numbers will be sequential, based on the sequences in the Number Series - Transactions setting. Transactions that were created from Sub Systems will be shown with their Transaction Numbers preceded by a code representing their Sub System. Their Transaction Numbers will be the same as those of the Sub System records from which they were created. For example, a Transaction generated from a Sales Invoice will have a Transaction Number that is the same as its Invoice Number, and will be shown in the browse window with a prefix of S/INV.

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You can have different Transaction and Registration Dates in a Transaction. This is particularly important in relation to your external reporting, e.g. the VAT reporting, and your internal accounting, where you may wish Transactions to go into the correct month.


In the Text column you can see the short explanatory text that was entered for each Transaction. For those Transactions created from Sub Systems, the Text column will usually show details of the Customer or Supplier involved and, if appropriate, the Currency and Exchange Rate used.

If you are using Windows or macOS, you can change the sort order by clicking on the column headings. To reverse any sort, click once again on the same column heading. The current sort column will be shown with its heading coloured blue. If you are using iOS or Android, tap on the column heading and choose the sort order you need. Repeat the procedure to reverse the sort.

To search for a particular Transaction, first sort the list by the column that you want to use for the search. Then, enter the text that you want to find in the Search field in the top of the window (in the top right-hand corner if you are using Windows/macOS) and press the Return key (macOS) or Search (iOS/Android). The first record containing a match for your search string will be highlighted (if you are using Windows, a match will be highlighted as you type each character). If you need to search for a particular Transaction Number, you can either include the Fiscal Year or Sub System prefix in your keyword (e.g. search for "2007.2023" not "2023" or for "DELIV.960077" not "960077"), or you can use the * wildcard instead of the prefix (e.g. "*2023", "*960077").

There are four things you can do with your Transactions:

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The Transaction register in Standard ERP:

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