How do I manually enter or record a transaction in my accounting software, including adding it directly to the account register?

When should you record a transaction by hand?

A transaction can reach your books by more than one route. Intuit's help article on using account registers in QuickBooks Online describes three: forms such as invoices or expenses; online banking; and direct entry, because "You can add transactions directly to certain account registers for quick changes during review." Typing one yourself should be a decision: anything that will also arrive another way must be paired with your entry or it will exist twice. The situation decides the route:

Bank deposits and transfers between your own accounts have their own guides.

Which surface should you use: the register, the transaction form or a journal entry?

Intuit's help article on adding a transaction to an account register says you can "manually add transactions like checks, deposits, or journal entries directly to an account register": open the chart of accounts, select View Register beside the account, choose the transaction type and fill in its fields. The same article cautions that "Not every account register lets you add transactions directly", and Intuit's article on using registers adds that "Some accounts, such as Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable, have registers that cannot be edited directly." A customer invoice or a vendor bill therefore cannot be typed in as a register line.

A register line shows only part of a transaction. Intuit's help on finding and editing register transactions says that to change anything in the greyed-out sections you select Edit, which "opens the full transaction form where you can make additional changes." Intuit's add-to-register article states the trade-off itself: "While we suggest using forms like invoices or sales receipts for better reporting, manual entry can be faster for certain tasks."

The three surfaces differ in what they record:

Period-end adjusting entries also have their own guide.

When is a plain entry the wrong instrument?

When a transaction has its own document type, record it there: the document's workflow does work a plain entry cannot. Three cases matter most:

• An unpaid vendor bill. Intuit's article on the differences between bills, checks and expenses says to "Enter a bill to report a transaction that you will pay in the future", which it calls "essential for accurate Accounts Payable (A/P) reporting and tracking vendor balances". The same article says "Do not use a Check or Expense to pay an existing bill", because doing so "may cause the bill to appear unpaid on your reports", and a check typed into the register for that vendor does exactly that. Pay an entered bill with Pay bills instead: the same article says you "must use the Pay bills feature to close it".
• A customer invoice. Intuit's article on using registers says forms like invoices track "the entire sales cycle and accounting", and Intuit's duplicates article says "Choose one way to record each sale, such as an invoice or a sales receipt, but not both". A sale you invoiced must not also be typed into the register as income. Applying a bank-fed payment to its invoice is covered in the guide to matching bank-feed transactions.
• Items, or a cost you will rebill. Intuit's help on entering expenses puts both on the expense form: you can "enter specific products and services in the Item details section to itemize the expense", and you mark the expense billable "If you plan to bill a customer for the expense".

The bank balance is right either way, so the loss stays hidden until someone asks what is still owed or what a job cost.

What does the same purchase look like in the register and on the expense form?

On 3 September you pay Ridgeline Supply 640.00 from Business Checking by electronic funds transfer. The payment covers 500.00 of tile adhesive for a job you will bill to your customer Harbor Dental and 140.00 of printer paper and toner. Ridgeline's receipt is numbered R-5521.

As one register line. Intuit's expense help says expenses can go "directly to the account register". In the Business Checking register you add an expense dated 3 September with reference R-5521, payee Ridgeline Supply, account Supplies, memo "Adhesive and paper" and payment 640.00. The books now hold this entry:

On the expense form. You choose Ridgeline Supply as payee, Business Checking as the payment account, 3 September as the date and R-5521 as the reference. A category line puts 140.00 in Office Supplies. A second category line puts the 500.00 of tile adhesive in Job Materials, marked billable to Harbor Dental. The memo reads "Receipt R-5521: adhesive for Harbor Dental job; office paper and toner", and the receipt is attached. The books now hold this entry:

Business Checking falls by 640.00 either way, and its register shows the same balance. Intuit's register articles do not list the fields a register line holds, and anything greyed out on it needs the full form. This one-line entry was saved without the following:

• The split between a job cost and office overhead
• The billable mark that ties 500.00 to Harbor Dental
• The attached receipt

Which fields make an entry identifiable later?

Every manual entry should carry these fields:

• Date. Use the day the transaction happened; OpenStax's Principles of Accounting, in its section on journal entries, says to "Include a date of when the transaction occurred." A wrong date moves the entry into the wrong period and away from the bank's copy.
• Account and direction. Enter it in the account the money moved through, as money out or money in. A payment typed as a deposit misstates the balance by twice the amount.
• Amount. Use the exact figure the bank or card statement will show, so the later pairing lines up.
• Payee. Name who the transaction was with. Intuit's help on entering expenses has you select the vendor in the Payee field, but leave it empty when one entry covers several petty cash expenses; then name each payee in its line description or the memo.
• Reference number. Copy the check, receipt or invoice number from the document; if the field already holds a check number, start the memo with the document's number.
• Memo. Say what the money was for, in words a stranger would understand. Intuit's help on entering expenses says memo notes "appear in the account register, on printed checks, and on reports."

These fields are what every later search and review runs on. Intuit's help on finding and editing register transactions says the Find field lets you search "by amount, reference number, or memo", so the Find field can match an entry with no reference and no memo only on its amount, along with every other entry for the same amount.

How do you choose the account on the other side?

Every entry has at least two sides, even when the screen shows one. OpenStax's section on journal entries states the rule: "You will have at least one debit (possibly more). You will always have at least one credit (possibly more)." After saving a register line, confirm in the ledger report (step 4 of the last section) that the amount landed in both accounts. Intuit's help on entering expenses makes both explicit on the expense form: you select as payment account "the account you used to pay for the expense", and as category "the expense account you use to track expense transactions".

Choose the second account deliberately:

• Decide it from what the money bought or settled, not from who was paid, because one supplier can sell you job materials one week and office supplies the next.
• Read any account the screen fills in before you save, because an accepted default repeats on every entry made the same way.
• Use a holding account, such as uncategorized or suspense, only for an amount you will clear this month, and say in the memo what is still open.

What should you do when the bank delivers the same transaction?

If the account also has a bank feed, the transaction will arrive again, and your entry is what the arriving item must be paired with. Work in this order:

1. Record the entry by hand with the exact amount and the payee.
2. When the bank's copy appears for review, pair it with your entry. Intuit's article on fixing duplicate bank-feed transactions says: "Match downloaded transactions to existing records instead of adding them."
3. Never add or categorize the bank's copy as a new transaction. That records one movement twice and moves the balance by the amount a second time.

4. If it was added anyway and neither copy is reconciled, undo it. The same duplicates article says that after Undo "The transaction goes back to the For review tab", where you "Match it to the record you already have". If one copy is already reconciled, the same article says to keep that one.

   If the reconciled copy is the bank's and your entry carries lines, a billable mark, a memo or an attachment, don't just delete it: Intuit's article on voiding and deleting transactions says deletion removes a transaction "everywhere except the audit log". Note what your entry carries and ask whoever reconciles the account how to carry it over first; the duplicates article says to "check with your accountant before unreconciling anything".

How pairing works, including what to do when no match is suggested, is covered in the guide to matching bank-feed transactions.

Where does the support for the entry go?

A typed entry has no outside origin, so whatever supports it has to be attached or written in when you make it. OpenStax's Principles of Accounting, in its section on the initial steps of the accounting cycle, says "The information to record a transaction comes from an original source." What you do depends on whether such a document exists:

• A document exists. Put its number in the reference field (or at the start of the memo if that field holds a check number) and attach the document on the full form. Intuit's help on entering expenses says of that step, "If you want to add an attachment, like a receipt, you can do that here." Receipt capture has its own guide.
• No document exists. Write the basis into the memo: what was paid, to whom, why, how the amount was worked out and who approved it. OpenStax's journal-entry rules call for a description on every entry: "You will write a short description after each journal entry." A memo such as "Cash to J. Ortiz, 2 hours snow clearing at 25.00 an hour, no receipt, approved M. Lee" explains a 50.00 entry to anyone who reviews it later.

What should you check before dating an entry into an earlier period?

Check the date before you save. If it falls in a month already reconciled, or in a period whose statements others have received, the entry changes balances someone has already relied on.

In QuickBooks Online you can lock past periods. Intuit's article on locking your books says that once a closing date is set, you "can't change any transactions on or before that date without approval", and that an attempt to change or delete them brings a warning or a password request, depending on the settings. If you meet that warning or prompt, stop and ask whoever closed the period before you go on. That article describes the warning only for changing or deleting existing transactions, so for a new entry your own date check before saving is the control.

An entry that is really a correction to a period already closed and reported belongs to the separate guide on correcting closed periods.

How do you correct or remove an entry, and what does the software keep?

Intuit's help on finding and editing register transactions says to select the transaction in the register to expand it and "Make changes to the available fields", using Edit to reach the full form for the rest. Removing is a separate decision, and Intuit's article on voiding and deleting transactions sets out what each route keeps: "Voided transactions are zero and show as void in your records", while "You remove a transaction everywhere except the audit log when you delete it." The same article warns that "You can’t undo a voided transaction", notes that "You can use the audit log to re-enter a deleted transaction", and on the expense side says "You can only void checks, expenses, and bill payments." Intuit's duplicates article adds that deleted transactions can't be restored, and that the audit log keeps their details for about 2 years.

Choose by what went wrong:

Intuit's article on fixing beginning-balance issues when reconciling explains why a reconciled entry needs care: when a reconciled transaction is edited, deleted, voided, moved or unreconciled, "This changes the ending balance of your last reconciliation and sets the beginning balance for the next one."

Intuit's help on finding and editing register transactions does not say what an edit keeps of the values it replaces, so if a reviewer will need the original date, account or amount, note it in the memo first. For a billable entry, Intuit's expense help notes that edits "will impact the invoice you send them later", so check that invoice.

Where the history of a change matters, void rather than delete. Tracing changes afterwards has its own guide on the audit trail.

How do you confirm the entry landed where you intended?

A saved entry is accepted whether or not its account and date are right, so read it back:

1. Open the register of the account you entered it in. Intuit's add-to-register article says that after you save, "The new transaction now appears in the account register." Find it by amount, reference or memo.
2. Compare the line with the document: date, direction, amount, payee, the other account and the memo.
3. Sort by date and check that the running balance moved by exactly the amount, in the right direction. Intuit's help on finding and editing register transactions notes that under any other sort except reconciliation status, "the Balance column displays n/a".
4. Check the other side. Intuit's help on running a ledger report says "You can generate a report in QuickBooks Online that details the debits and credits for every transaction", starting from the Transaction Detail by Account report with Debit and Credit columns added. Filter it to both accounts the entry touched and the entry's date.
5. If the account has a bank feed, look again after the bank's copy arrives: there should be one record, not two. Intuit's duplicates article recommends that you "Reconcile your accounts each month to catch any duplicates you may have missed."