Page 88 - Accounting Principles (A Business Perspective)

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General Journal
Page 2

Date Account Titles and Explanation Post. Debit Credit
Ref.
2010 Dec. 20 Accounts Receivable (+A) 103 5 7 0 0
Service Revenue (+SE) 400 5 7 0 0
To record the performance of training services on account
for which a customer was billed.

24 Advertising Expense (-SE) 505 5 0
Accounts Payable (+L) 200 5 0
Received a bill for advertising for the month of December.

26 Cash (+A) 100 5 0 0
Accounts Receivable (-A) 103 5 0 0
Received $500 from a customer on accounts receivable.

28 Salaries Expense (-SE) 507 3 6 0 0
Cash (-A) 100 3 6 0 0
Paid training personnel salaries for the first four weeks
of December.

29 Utilities Expense (-SE) 511 1 5 0
Cash (-A) 100 1 5 0
Paid the utilities bill for December.

30 Gas and Oil Expense (-SE) 506 6 8 0
Accounts Payable (-A) 200 6 8 0
Received a bill for gas and oil used in the trucks for
December.

31 Dividends (-SE) 320 3 0 0 0
Cash (-A) 100 3 0 0 0
Dividends were paid to stockholders.

Exhibit 11: General journal (after posting)
To understand the posting and cross-indexing process, trace the entries from the general journal to the general

ledger. The ledger accounts need not contain explanations of all the entries, since any needed explanations can be
obtained from the general journal.
Look at Exhibit 11 to see how all the November and December transactions of MicroTrain Company would be
journalized. As shown in Exhibit 11, you skip a line between journal entries to show where one journal entry ends
and another begins. This procedure is standard practice among accountants. Note that no dollar signs appear in
journals or ledgers. When amounts are in even dollar amounts, accountants leave the cents column blank or use
zeros or a dash. When they use lined accounting work papers, commas or decimal points are not needed to record

an amount. When they use unlined paper, they add both commas and decimal points.

Accounting Principles: A Business Perspective 89 A Global Text