Journal entry
Financial Accounting glossary · The Accounting Cycle & Financial Statements
Definition
The fundamental record of a transaction in double-entry bookkeeping.
Journal entry in plain English
A journal entry is just the basic written record of one thing that happened to a business's money — like a single line in a diary, but with a strict format. Accounting uses a system called "double-entry," which means every event touches at least two accounts and the two sides always balance: money coming in one place equals money going out (or owed) somewhere else. For example, if you buy a laptop for cash, one entry shows the laptop you now own going up and the cash going down by the same amount. Every financial report a company produces is ultimately built by stacking up thousands of these little balanced entries.
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