Why do journal transactions appear on the transactions page?
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Why do journal transactions appear on the transactions page?
Use journal transactions to make an adjustment to your accounts in Wave. Journal transactions you create will appear on your transactions page.
The transactions page in Wave is intended to reflect ...
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Why don't we have the ability to create journal transactions in another currency other than the one the business account is setup in? Especially when the account that is 'receiving the value' (the debit account) is in the currency I want already. Expense transactions allow this but not journal entries. Please advise. Thank you.
Hi @generalinq, while you cannot create journal transactions in a foreign currency, Wave will still calculate the exchange rate for you if you use a foreign currency account. For example, my main currency is CAD; if I create a journal transaction crediting $100 (CAD in this case) to my USD checking account, it will be calculated properly in USD in my reports.
The same will be true for any account that uses a different currency.
Thanks @Erik. I was trying to create a transaction to show in $USD but not a transfer (your snapshot is showing a transfer of cash. I have an expense in USD that was paid for by my personal credit card in CDN. The imported transaction looks fine with no issues. I could have simply credited the 'Owners Investment' account using that imported transaction but I was following the recommended method on WAVE which stipulates that we should have the imported transaction go into our personal account, then create a journal transaction in the business account which debits the expense account (let's say utilities in this case) and credits the 'Owners Investment' account. This method does not display the correct currency in my business account. It shows the transaction being in CDN$.
The only other way is to import the transaction that occurred on my personal credit card, into my business account so I have the original transaction w/ the conversion since it was imported automatically through WAVE. Then categorize that transaction as Owners Investment. This will naturally accomplish the same thing as the first scenario minus the entry in my personal account (which I don't care for). I wonder if this is sufficient enough.
@generalinq thank you for the additional information. We have actually recently simplified how to handle these types of transactions, which is outlined in a new Help Center article.
Following this article should give you the same result when compared to categorizing the expense as "Owner's Investment". In other words, either your suggested method or the method outlined in the article would suffice.
Hi @Erik, thanks for the reply.
I took a look at the provided link, your right, it's pretty much the same thing. The 'Owners Investment / Drawings' equity account is actually listed in WAVE under the 'Retained Earnings: Profit' section for some reason though (can't recall if I created that or if it's the WAVE default). The method in the link appears to suggest that it may be found under the 'Business Owner Contribution and Drawing' section (which makes more sense to me actually). I suppose I can simply create the same account under the proper section but at the end of the day, it's the same thing (ie. an equity account). Glad to hear that I can keep the actual imported transactions made from my personal CC, in my business profile. However, I put much thought into it and I just use journal transactions for all those Owner Investments. I just thought the original imported transaction would be better if it showed up in my business transactions but I do not think it matters. As long as I balance the books and have the receipts, I am ok.
Thanks for the reply.
I need the Journal transactions available in foreign currencies pleaseee!!
@juddi While there isn't a way to change the currency on the Journal Transaction itself, you can associate the transaction with accounts that you've created in the Chart of Accounts that are linked to that particular currency. I hope this helps!
I have Journal Transactions for my payrolls on my Accounting transactions page. My Wave account is connected to my bank account which is where taxes and wages are paid from so I have these individual transactions in the list also. It seems to me that the Journal transaction duplicates all the other wage, tax, etc transactions but does not categorize them the exact same. Am i supposed to just delete the tax and wage payments and leave the Journal transaction?
@countylinemontessori I have the same question!
Hey @coreyrob This is the answer i got from Wave Support:
"The best way to reconcile this duplicates is to delete the Payroll transactions imported onto your Transactions page. They are unnecessary as this information has already been recorded in greater detail as a Journal Transaction."
So it must be something like with Invoice payments that also show up as a transaction due to being auto-imported from a bank account. For those I usually merge the duplicates but for journal transaction it seems they can't be merged so one needs to be deleted
Those transactions are automatically imported from my linked bank account, manually delete is not practicable, is there a way to exclude or auto clean up Journal Transaction created by Wave?
Hey @tigerits @coreyrob @countylinemontessori
If you're on the new version of Wave accounting the message below applies!
Essentially the initial journaled transaction is categorized under a liability account. So, when a payroll is approved, the liability account is credited (increased) by, the amount that you owe the employees. This is the accounting equivalent of saying “I approved payroll, so now I owe my employees the wages from that payroll”.
Wave will also create a withdrawal transaction in the Transactions page whose account is set to the funding account from Account Mapping, and whose category is set to Payroll Liabilities. The date of this transaction will match the withdrawal date for the Direct Deposit. Where the journal transaction credited Payroll Liabilities, this transaction debits it by the amount of the withdrawal. This is the accounting equivalent of saying “Ok, now I’ve actually paid my employees.”
The triplicate transaction is if you have a bank account connected, it will pull in the same withdrawal transaction, so you would have to either merge the two transactions, or delete the bank-imported transaction, as Wave will have already accounted for it. People recommend merging by selecting the check boxes beside the two withdrawal transactions and selecting merge at the top instead of deleting, but it doesn't exactly matter to be honest. Some people don't like the idea of deleting a transaction.
I'd highly recommend reading about how our payroll services work with this handy article.
https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005714406-Payroll-by-Wave-All-about-the-bookkeeping
@BarsinA
I went ahead and deleted the imported bank transactions, and left the journal transactions there, but it completely threw off the bank reconciliation. In order to reconcile my checking account i had to add back in all the deleted bank withdrawals. So now i am back in the same position.
I tried to merge the withdrawals for tax and wages with the journal transaction but i don't see how this works. Also it seems that the two reports on my dashboard are never both accurate. If i delete all the imported transactions then Profit & Loss is fine but Cash Flow is off, and when i add them back this reverses.
Please explain how i merge the bank transactions with the journal transactions (the more details the better, i am no accountant
).
Also what impact would it have on reconciliation or reports or anything else if i just deleted the journal transactions.
Thanks!
Hey @countylinemontessori , I sincerely apologize for all of this confusion as it seems like you're receiving the run around here. You should be keeping these bank imported transactions and categorizing them as "Payroll Liabilities." Because the journal transaction is basically saying money is owed to employees, categorizing these bank transactions which come in a few days later with Payroll Liabilities marks that you're now paying this money to your employees, thus zeroing out everything as it should be.
..........
Why are Journal transactions not showing up in the Account Transactions Report?
Hi @countyline . The correct order here is that the Journal Transaction should be generated first, creating the liabilities. If you have direct deposit enabled, Wave will automatically create those necessary transactions when the money moves, thus zeroing out the liabilities created by the Journal. If this is the case, you can merge these transactions with your bank imported transactions, OR just delete the bank imported transactions.
If you don't have direct deposit enabled, you'll want to keep the bank imported transactions and categorize as Payroll Liabilities as these are what zero out the previous Journal liabilities.
I hope this makes sense, let me know if you have any further questions!
Hi @SNL , JTs do appear on the Account Transactions Report so please ensure you're looking at the right account.
@AlexL
I didn't understand your advise from before but it was the answer i needed:
"You should be keeping these bank imported transactions and categorizing them as "Payroll Liabilities.""
I'll note that the auto-imported bank transactions for payroll and taxes should not be deleted as it throws off the bank reconciliation. Also if you select a journal transactions and one other transaction you will see the 'merge' button disabled with a tip 'Cannot merge journal transactions'
Hi AlexL,
If we categorize bank imported transactions as Payroll Liabilities wouldn't it just double the liabilities already in the Journal Transaction?
Thank you!
Hey @LUT, not quite! Check out this Help Center article here, it's got a little more context!
Hi @AlexL, @SNL asked why journal transactions were not appearing on Accounts Transactions and I am having the same problem. The place I am particularly referring to is on the left, you choose "Accounting / Transactions / List of my Cash and Bank. My cash and bank accounts are not showing my journal transactions. The balance is correct but I am not seeing the journal transactions
Hey there @triplenic
The journal transactions will only appear under the "All Accounts" page in Wave. Journal transactions involve a migration of funds between two or more accounts. To reduce redundancies they would not continue to pop up with every account that is associated with a debit and credit in this particular transaction.
If you'd like a list of all your Journal Entries, select the filter tool at the top of your transactions page > Select the drop down menu "type" > Select journal.
Hopefully this helps!