Chapter 3 Blog

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/CliffsReviewTopic/Journal-Entries.topicArticleId-21081,articleId-21011.html

Summary:

This article talks about journal entries and their importance to a company’s future success by being neat with all of their financial records which need to be easily referred to at any time. It also goes through the basic steps of journalizing the transactions into a general journal which is a crucial part for every company to follow. All transactions are recorded in chronological order so that records are organized and easy to look for. The actual process of documenting a journal entry is explained in detail by showing exactly where the appropriate information needs to be placed. Along with this, are reference postings which are briefly mentioned to indicate the accounts number which is classified under a specific set of numbers. All of this data can and is used every single day in businesses around the world. Even if it is simple, it is one of the building blocks that accounting is based on.

Connections:

The connections I was able to make between this article and Chapter 3 in our textbook is that they both talk about journal entries attempting to get us familiar with them once again. Journalizing transactions is something that can be easily referenced back to the text as it is mention several times as well as how to do so within a general journal. Although the article gives the basic way of recording transactions that occur, it still covers what is needed to know for this topic. Also, the detailed explanations shown can relate to our text. The diagram helps greatly in understanding exactly what is trying to be accomplished and in Chapter 3, there are several charts, graphs, and pictures explaining what is happening and how it is done. Though my connections were simple and could be looked at as plain are direct and to the point of what is really going on which I feel is more important in this article.

Personal Reflection:

Reading an article such as this one can help newcomers to the accounting world as it describes an everyday process in accountants’ and business people’s lives. I feel that it should be looked at by anyone interested in business because it has information that all people need to understand. The article is simple, learning the entire concept however, that can take much longer but it is also much more interesting at the same time. Going over it, I realized that it also includes a handful of key terms used in the business world such as “source documents,” “journalizing,” “general journal,” “journalizing,” “general journal,” “journal entry,” and “posting.” General definitions nonetheless but are also considered very valuable when discussing business matters involving journal entries. Finally, I personally enjoyed this article because of its simplicity. All that really mattered was getting to the point, and I think that it was able to accomplish that quite well.

-Jason K.