How to Make and Import Journal Entries in QuickBooks Desktop

Before you start

• Intuit recommends journal entries only if you understand accounting or are working from your accountant's advice.
• Every entry has to balance. Intuit's steps say your debits must equal your credits.
• One entry can't use two Accounts Receivable accounts, two Accounts Payable accounts, or one of each. QuickBooks shows a warning and won't record it.
• Back up the company file before any import. Intuit says you can't undo an import.
• Importing a .qbj file works in single-user or multi-user mode. For an IIF file, sign in as the admin.

If you haven't made a backup lately, see how to back up and restore a QuickBooks Desktop company file.

Step 1: Make a general journal entry

1. 1Go to Company > Make General Journal Entries.
2. 2Fill in the fields for the entry.
3. 3Check that total debits equal total credits.
4. 4Select Save or Save & Close.

QuickBooks updates each account's balance from the debits and credits you entered. To check the posting later, open the saved entry and press Ctrl+Y. That opens its transaction journal report.

Step 2: Edit, reverse or delete an entry

1. 1Go to Company > Make General Journal Entries, then find and open the entry.
2. 2To edit it, make your changes and select Save or Save & Close. Select Yes to record the changes.
3. 3To reverse it, select Reverse.
4. 4To delete it, go to Edit > Delete, then select OK.

A reversing entry swaps the debits and credits and shows an R next to the entry number. Intuit says QuickBooks dates it the first day of the month after the original entry. To see later who changed or deleted an entry, see how to track changes with the Audit Trail report.

Step 3: Memorize an entry you repeat

1. 1Enter the journal entry the way you want it to repeat, but don't save it. Leave blank any field that changes each time.
2. 2From the Edit menu, select the Memorize option for the entry. Intuit's example for a check is Memorize Check.
3. 3Enter a Name, then choose Add to my Reminders List, Do Not Remind Me or Automate Transaction Entry.
4. 4For a reminder, fill in How Often. For automatic entry, fill in How Often and Next Date, and set Next Date to a day in the future.
5. 5Select OK, then Save & Close.

Your memorized entries are listed at Lists > Memorized Transaction List. Do Not Remind Me keeps the entry as a template you use when you need it.

Step 4: Import journal entries from your accountant

Your accountant can create entries in a copy of your file and send them as a General Journal Entries file, which has a .qbj extension. You keep working while they make their adjustments, then add their entries to your books.

1. 1Download and save the .qbj file your accountant sent.
2. 2Open your company file and go to File > Utilities > Import > General Journal Entries.
3. 3Find and select the .qbj file.
4. 4In the Add General Journal Entries window, review each entry. Uncheck any you don't want to add, and tell your accountant which ones.
5. 5Select Add GJEs, then OK.

If you can't uncheck the entries, Intuit says your accountant wants all of them added. If your accountant worked in an Accountant's Copy instead, see how to create and send an Accountant's Copy and import the changes.

Step 5: Import journal entries from an IIF file

IIF (Intuit Interchange Format) files are tab-separated text files. Intuit lists general journal entries among the transactions you can import with them, though you can't export transactions this way. Intuit doesn't offer technical support for importing or exporting IIF files. It also warns that building one from scratch is hard without experience formatting delimited text files.

1. 1Start from Intuit's sample journal entry file, journal.iif, from its IIF sample files. Transaction headers sit in rows that start with !TRNS, !SPL and !ENDTRNS.
2. 2Make sure every account in the file already exists in QuickBooks. Intuit warns that an account it doesn't find is created as a new bank account.
3. 3Back up the company file and sign in as the admin.
4. 4Go to File > Utilities > Import > IIF Files, then select Import IIF.
5. 5Find the file and select OK. Intuit doesn't recommend the Import it for me. I'll fix it later option: it skips the data review and needs single-user mode.
6. 6When the import succeeds, check the counts of lists and transactions imported, then select Done.

Intuit says the 2019-and-later IIF tool scans the file for errors first and works in multi-user mode.

Common errors and fixes

• File not imported: QuickBooks creates a new IIF file holding only the failed records, with error details. Select Review now, look for ERROR, fix and save the file, then import the corrected file. If asked whether to keep the file type, select Yes.
• Entries look wrong but no error appeared: Intuit says IIF imports do only limited error checking. A bad format can import incorrectly without a message, so check the entries after every import.
• A new bank account appeared after the import: the file used an account that wasn't in QuickBooks. Add your accounts before you import.
• Warning: You cannot use more than one A/R or A/P account in the same transaction: Intuit's workaround uses a clearing account and two separate entries.
• Leading zeros disappear when you edit the file in Excel: format those column cells as Custom.
• Excel asks to save again when you close it: after you've saved the IIF file once, select Don't Save on that second prompt.
• The file came from another country's QuickBooks: IIF files can't move between country versions, such as US and Canada.

Edge cases

• Journal entries in Excel: Intuit's Excel import steps cover customers, vendors, items and the chart of accounts. For journal entries, Intuit's Desktop articles describe the .qbj import and IIF files instead.
• Spreadsheet rows for bank, credit card, A/R or A/P registers: Intuit says only Enterprise and Accountant can batch enter these, at Accountant > Batch Enter Transactions. Its batch article doesn't mention journal entries.
• Editing an IIF file in Excel: set the file type to All Files when you open it. Then select Next, Next and Finish in the Text Import Wizard.

Where QuickBooks Desktop leaves the work to you

• Deciding which accounts to debit and credit. Intuit points you to your accountant for that.
• Building and checking IIF files, with no technical support from Intuit.
• Reviewing every imported entry, since an import can't be undone.
• Telling your accountant which .qbj entries you left out.
• Acting on reminders for memorized entries that aren't set to enter automatically.