Managing accounting journals

By the end of this guide, you will know how to pick the right journal for each transaction among the standard journals (AC, VT, BQ, CA, OD and AN) and how to add an extra bank journal. An accounting journal is a chronological register that groups vouchers of the same type of transaction and determines the numbering prefix of vouchers (e.g. VT-2026-000001).

The 5 automatically created journals

When your company file is created, SynkriaOps generates five journals: AC, VT, BQ, CA and OD. The AN journal is created the first time opening balances are generated. Each bank or Mobile Money account you add gets its own journal (BQ2, BQ3, MM1…).

Code	Name	Role	Numbering example
VT	Sales journal	Customer invoices, credit notes	VT-2026-000001
AC	Purchases journal	Supplier invoices, expense reports	AC-2026-000042
BQ	Bank journal	Bank receipts and disbursements	BQ-2026-000015
CA	Cash journal	Cash receipts and expenses	CA-2026-000003
OD	Miscellaneous operations journal	Corrections, payroll, depreciation, accruals	OD-2026-000007
AN	Opening balances journal	Carry-forward of prior-period balances	AN-2026-000001

The company file's journal list: code, type and number of entries per journal.

Tip

Voucher numbering is sequential and non-reusable: deleting a draft voucher does not free its number. Once validated, a voucher is permanently inscribed in the sequence.

Detail of each journal

VT — Sales

The VT journal receives all sales transactions towards your customers:

• Customer invoices (debit 411xxx / credit 701000 + 4431 Output VAT)
• Credit notes on sales (reverse entry)
• Cash receipts if no separate bank journal is used (not recommended)

Example: service sale XAF 1,500,000 excl. VAT + 19.25% VAT = XAF 288,750 → total customer receivable XAF 1,788,750.

AC — Purchases

The AC journal receives all purchase transactions from your suppliers:

• Supplier invoices (debit 601000 + 4452 Input VAT / credit 401xxx)
• Internal expense reports
• Credit notes received from suppliers

Example: office supplies invoice XAF 250,000 excl. VAT + 19.25% VAT = XAF 48,125 → total supplier payable XAF 298,125.

BQ — Bank

The BQ journal records movements on the bank account:

• Collection of customer invoices (debit 521001 / credit 411xxx)
• Payment of supplier invoices (debit 401xxx / credit 521001)
• Wire transfers, bank charges, interest

This is the journal where you post bank reconciliation entries against your bank statement.

OD — Miscellaneous

The OD journal is the all-purpose journal for operations that do not fall under sales, purchases, or banking:

• Payroll and social charges
• Depreciation allowances (debit 681xxx / credit 281xxx)
• Year-end accruals and adjustments
• Contra-entries for correcting validated vouchers
• Internal transfers (between cash registers)

Caution

A correction to a validated voucher is always made via a contra-entry in the OD journal: never by modifying the original voucher.

AN — Opening balances

The AN journal is exclusively reserved for accounting carry-forward: it receives the opening balances from the previous fiscal year.

• Used once per fiscal year, at the beginning
• AN vouchers cannot be created if subsequent entries already exist on the same accounts
• After carry-forward, this journal remains empty until the next fiscal year opening

See Recovering historical accounting data →

Adding a second bank journal

If your company has multiple bank accounts (main bank + secondary bank, or an FCFA account + an Orange Money account), it is best practice to create a separate journal for each account.

1. Go to Accounting → Journals → New journal.

2. Choose the type Bank.

3. Enter a short unique code (e.g. BQ2, BGFI, UBA).

4. Fill in the name (e.g. BGFI Bank — Current account) and the associated treasury account (e.g. 521002 BGFI Bank).

5. Click Save. The journal is immediately available in voucher entry.

Tip

Best practice: create a treasury sub-account 521002 for each additional bank, and link it to its own journal. This simplifies bank reconciliation and account-by-account reporting.

Which journal to use? Summary table

Transaction	Recommended journal
Invoice issued to a customer	VT
Credit note granted to a customer	VT
Invoice received from a supplier	AC
Internal expense report	AC
Collection of an invoice (incoming wire)	BQ (or BQ2 depending on the bank)
Payment of a supplier invoice	BQ
Monthly payroll	OD
Depreciation allowance	OD
Contra-entry / correction	OD
Opening balances (carry-forward)	AN

FEC export and journal codes

The FEC (Fichier des Écritures Comptables) is the statutory tax export. Each entry line in the FEC file includes the journal code (JournalCode field in the FEC standard). The journal codes you define in SynkriaOps appear verbatim in the export.

If you plan to rename or change journal codes after validation, be aware that historical FEC exports may already use the old codes. For audit purposes, it is best to keep journal codes stable once in production use.

See also

• Create an accounting voucher →
• Posting and reversing an accounting entry →
• Recovering historical accounting data →