First entry in General Journal

Question

I have a new fiscal year and am now to record all 2020 transactions into the program. 
 The first one I attempted is a deposit of 2181.00 
 I went to General Journal 
 Source = Deposit 
 Date: 1 day after year start , 02/01/2020 
 Comment: Gov deposit 
 Account Field: 1020 cash to be deposited 
 Credit: 2181:00 
 Comment: Gov deposit 
 Process transaction 
 I get this message 'Transaction is not balanced. Check that the amounts you have entered are correct. Correct the amounts so that the totals are the same. 
 What am I missing

Richard S. Ridings · Answer

You need to be very clear about using the term Credit. 
 St. Lawrence Historical Advisory Committee INC. said: I just want to make a credit of $2181 to our account 
 Some people will record this kind of entry as a Sale because it is income coming from some other place. This allows you to see all entries related to these funding entries in the Customer history report (Customer Aged Detail). 
 However, a General Journal entry is not wrong but the use of "Credit" needs to be clear. In your case, you wish to Credit an Income Account for Government Funding or Government Grants. Then on the Debit side of the transaction record the same dollar amount to your bank account. Basically just finish the entry you started but use a Revenue account for the Credit and the bank account for your Debit. You may need to create the Revenue account. 
 If I am not wrong, from your perspective you want to credit your bank account based on what you said and that is not from the correct perspective. When the bank puts money in your bank account, they credit the account because they owe you the money (increasing their liability to you). The money belongs to your organisation, so you wish to increase the balance of your Asset Bank account which by definition is a Debit.

Richard S. Ridings · Answer

I was trying to get you to think through the logic of what you were trying to do. If you don't do that for each entry, you will make mistakes and it will take forever to keep your books updated. 
 The short answer is, no there is no step-by-step guide in Sage 50 to teach you how to do bookkeeping. 
 What you are trying to do is record the government funding as income and record it as deposited in your bank account. You see the entry on your bank statement Jan 2/20. 
 1) Open the General Journal 
 2) Enter the Source as indicated above: Deposit 
 3) Enter the date Jan 2/20 
 4) Enter the Comment: Gov Deposit 
 5) First line under the Account column, enter the Bank account number and in the Debits column enter the 2181 
 6) Second line under the Account column enter the Revenue account number for the Government Funding Revenue and enter the 2181 in the Credits column 
 7) If you wish to add line comments, you can put text in the Comment column on either or both lines. 
 8) On the Report menu you can see the journal entry before you post the entry. 
 8) If it balances, you can Post/Process the transaction. 
 9) Check your reporting to make sure what you think should happen does happen. This goes back to the information above. If I just recorded an amount that should have increased my bank balance, I will run a report to see if the bank balance increased. Same for my revenue. 
 10) Move on to the next transaction.

Sage 50 Canada

First entry in General Journal

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