Correcting an accounts entry

Pearl will allow you to amend an entry until it has either been reconciled with the bank account or reconciled for VAT.

There are two ways to get to the journal you need to correct:

1. Click a Pearl journal ID to take you to the details for the journal. The journal ID is to be found on the left hand column when in the search accounts screen, and also elsewhere in the accounting area.
2. Click Accounts -Tasks - Corrections and enter the required ID.

You will need to enter a reason for the correction, and the previous copy of the journal will be saved in the history to maintain an audit trail.

You can set your system up so that only certain members of staff are allowed to make corrections, using the Setup - Licences and permissions screen.

Journals that can't be corrected

If you've reconciled part of a journal against a bank statement, then that entry cannot be changed. In a similar way, if a journal has been reconciled on a VAT return, then it's locked and you can't edit it.

Cancelling a transaction completely

To undo an accounting entry, you need to zero it off. You can't delete journals for audit reasons, but you can clear it away:

1. Open the correction screen for the journal
2. Remove all the Invoice references
3. Zero all the debits and credits
4. Move [all] the nominal codes to "Mispostings account" (or similar)
5. Pop a reason in
6. Save

Things to watch out for

Don't put a SR (Sales Receipt) dated before the matching SI (Sales Invoice). Same goes for Purchases.

Don't put a Sales Invoice on a supplier, or a Purchase Invoice on a customer.

Don't duplicate the same Sales Invoice refernce for a customer. Two different customers can share the same reference (though this shouldn't happen unless you're putting bad data in) - same goes for suppliers - each supplier cannot have two Purchase Invoices with the same reference, otherwise the payment allocation screen won't work properly.

Recording an overpayment after the allocation has been made

This is an example of how to use the journal correction screen.

Don't simply increase the amount on a Sales Receipt if a customer has paid you too much. There is an extra row in the journal correction screen to allow you to add a row to mark the excess as "payment on account".

The original Sales Invoice is Journal 1:

The Sales Receipt journal (2) would have two rows for clearing one invoice:

But if the actual amount received was 10.50 not 10.00, you would need to add in the extra as follows - note the unique reference for the Payment on Account (0.50)