One document, one entry: why every financial document should book its entry the moment it is saved

In many businesses the invoice is saved in one place and the accountant types its journal in another. That seems normal until the invoice amount changes and the entry does not, or a voucher is deleted and its entry stays in the books. You now have two numbers for one fact and no way to know which is right.

The problem rarely shows on the day it happens. It shows at month-end: the trial balance does not agree with the customer statement, the VAT account does not agree with the return, and the accountant spends days hunting a small difference created by an edit that never reached the entry.

The rule: the entry is built from the document, not beside it

• The moment the document is saved, its entry is built from the document’s own data: accounts, tax, party and cost centres.
• Editing the document updates that same entry under the same number, and deleting it deletes it — never a second entry.
• The entry stays pending approval, outside the general ledger, until an authorised person approves it — then it enters the trial balance and the statements.
• Approved means locked: it changes only through an unapproval with a written reason, and the trail is kept.

An example: a credit sales invoice

You save a services invoice with a net amount and its VAT. Its entry is built from the invoice itself: debit the customer for the gross amount, credit revenue for the net, and credit output VAT for the tax. Change the quantity an hour later and all three lines change with it; cancel the invoice before approval and its entry goes too. There is nothing left for the accountant to match by hand, because the figure in the books is the figure on the document.

What about manual journals?

Manual journals remain for what has no document: accruals, adjustments, reclassifications and any depreciation that is not automatic. But they follow the same cycle: saved as pending, approved by someone other than the author where the business’s policy requires it, and only then posted. The rule is not “no manual journals” but “no manual journal that duplicates an existing document”.

How to test your software in ten minutes

• Create an invoice, then open the journals: was its entry created on its own?
• Change the invoice amount: did the same entry change, or did a new one appear?
• Open the trial balance before approval: does the amount appear? It should not.
• Approve the invoice and try to edit it: does the program stop you and tell you why?
• Delete a pending voucher: did its entry disappear with it?

What do you gain?

Books that always match their documents, a faster month-end because nothing needs manual reconciliation between two places, and reports that carry only approved figures — so management never sees a number nobody reviewed.

This is the cycle Arttop 360 is built on across every module — invoices, vouchers, transfers, cheques, guarantees, assets, payroll and project certificates — and every window that issues an entry shows a preview of it before you save.

Related pages

• Accounting and finance in Arttop 360