FreeAgent has a simple journal entries screen that's designed for your clients to be able to use with your guidance.
You may prefer to not permit your clients to post their own journal entries. That's fine, just reduce their user permission level from "Full" to anything below that.
In this article, we aim to show you how this screen can work for you and why it's so different from the journal entry screens you may be used to.
One entry only
In FreeAgent you can only post one journal entry at a time, one debit or one credit. Debits are posted with no sign in front of the number, credits with a minus sign.
The other side of the entry
If you or your client then click Create New Entry, FreeAgent will post the opposite entry to the suspense account, so that the accounts are not out of balance.
When the balance on the suspense account shows as nil then the journal entries are complete.
Automatic population
If you click Create and Add Another, FreeAgent will bring up a new journal entries screen with the date and amount boxes automatically filled in, but the amount box will have the opposite sign in front of it.
So if you've posted a debit entry first then you'll see the credit entry.
You need to change the account category at the top, and the description too if necessary.
Multi-line journals
If you're posting journal entries over a number of categories, such as year end journals, you can simply change the automatic amount that FreeAgent generates.
Reason for this layout
The reason why we've chosen to create the journal entry screen this way, with a single entry at a time, is because the software was designed for use by small business owners.
As an accountant you'll know all about double entry journals, but your clients won't. So at FreeAgent we decided to make the journal entry screen as simple as we could so as not to confuse those small business owners who don't have an accountant.
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