In this article

General Journals

Use this page to post transactions directly to the general journal.

For a full description and more information on this page, see the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central documentation .

For information how the different combinations of the Account Type and Balance Account affect the entities to which the accounts belong, review the concept information for the Bank Account page.

Centralized and Decentralized Processing

Centralized or decentralized processing can be applied to general journal transactions.

When the Account Type is Customer, the option to use centralized or decentralized processing is on the Sales & Receivables FastTab of the Multi-Entity Management Setup.

For more information on centralized and decentralized processing for receivables, see Apply Customer Entries on the Cash Receipt Journals .

When the Account Type is Vendor, the option to use centralized or decentralized processing is on the Purchase & Payables FastTab of the Multi-Entity Management Setup.

For more information on centralized and decentralized processing for payables, see Apply Vendor Entries on the Payment Journals.

Create General Journal

To create a general journal transaction, follow the steps within the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central documentation, and incorporate these steps:

In the header, do the following:
1. If the Entity Code is empty or you do not want to use the default entity, select an entity.
2. If needed, select the Allocation Template.
3. If needed, change the Batch Name.
4. If needed for intercompany distribution, select Related > Header > Header Dimension.
The transaction lines are updated with transactions that have the same entity as the selected Entity Code and are in the specified Batch Name. The entity and allocation template become the default values for any line that is added.
You can add or edit each transaction line as follows:
1. If needed, change the Entity Code.
2. If needed, specify or change the MEM Allocation Template.
3. If you want to change the allocation amounts for the line, select Actions > Functions > MEM Allocation Template.
4. On the Allocation page, edit the Additional Dimensions and the Allocation Details as needed. You can use Manage > Allocate Equally to allocate percentage/amount equally for the selected rows, the remainder amount will go to the last line. If the amount has been fully allocated and involves multiple currency, the percentage of the last line will be auto adjusted and rounding amount go to the original account in the general journal.
5. Close the dialog to go back to the main journal page.
Select Post/Print > Preview Posting to review the ledger entries for the transaction.
When the entity of the line is different from the entity of the header, intercompany distributions for the line are applied during the preview or posting of the transactions.
You can then finish processing the transaction as per the instructions in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central documentation.

Opening Balances

To create the opening balances for the general journals, follow these steps:

Select the Entity Code.
For each line you add, do the following:
1. Specify the Entity Code or accept the default entity.
2. Select the account, specify the opening Amount and document number for the line.
3. Repeat these steps to add more lines.
Post the transaction to set up the opening balances for the general journals.

Creating Journal Entries from Incoming Documents

Use this section to create a journal entry from an incoming document. With Multi-Entity Management, you can assign an incoming document to any of your entities.

For information about how to process incoming documents, see Incoming Documents in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central documentation.

To assign an entity to an incoming document, do the following:

Go to the Incoming Documents list page.
On the action tab, select New.
Select the entity you want to use.
Select OK.

In the new Incoming Document card, the entity you select appears in the Entity Code field.

Create Incoming Documents Manually

If you choose to process an incoming document manually, then the entity code is visible in whichever type of document you select. For example, if you create a General Journal line, then the entity code is visible on the header and as a column in the Lines FastTab.

To create an incoming document manually, do the following:

Create a new incoming document record.
Then, on the Action tab of the Incoming Document card, select Create Manually.
Select the type of document you want to create. Select OK.
Depending on the type of document you select, that document card opens. For example, if you create a General Journal line, then the General Journals card opens.

When you select the entity for your incoming document, that same entity is used in the new document you create manually.

Use OCR Service with Incoming Documents

You can use an OCR service (Optical Character Recognition) to process incoming documents and convert them into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central records. For more information on using an OCR service, see Use OCR to Turn PDF and Image Files into Electronic Documents in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central documentation.

To assign an entity through an OCR service, do the following:

Add the entity to your external documents.
Make sure to train your OCR service to read the entity from the external document.
Add the mapping for the entity in the Data Exchange Definition card.

Map the entity to either the Shortcut Dimension 1 Code or the Shortcut Dimension 2 Code in the Data Exchange Definition card, depending on which global dimension you are using for your MEM entity.

Note icon. Note: If an entity is mapped in the Data Exchange Definition card, and the entity of an incoming document is different from the entity of the OCR service, MEM will ask which entity you want to use for the incoming document. You can choose between the entity of the incoming document or the entity that is mapped in your OCR service.

Fields

This page contains the following fields:

Journal Fields Table
Field	Description
Allocation Template	Select the entity allocation template for the transaction. This template is the default value for all new entries in the lines area. The allocation template for existing lines is not changed. For more information on the entity allocation template, see MEM Entity Allocation.
Entity Code	Select the entity for the transactions. The default value is your default entity. The default entity for the line is automatically updated with the entity value of the selected the customer, vendor, account, or item record. If needed, you can change it any entity to which you have access. When you select the entity, only the transactions in the batch that belong to the entity appear in the list. If the entity is empty, only transactions that do not have an entity appear in the list.
Lines
Entity Code	Displays the entity for the line. The default value is specified in the header. The default entity for the line is automatically updated with the entity value of the selected the customer, vendor, account, or item record. The selected entity filters the other records such that only the records that belong to that entity are available. For example, when entity 100 is selected, only the account numbers that belong to entity 100 are available.
MEM Allocation Template ID	Select the entity allocation template for the line. The default value is specified in the header, but you can change it if needed. To change the allocation values for a line, select Actions > Functions > MEM Allocation Template.

Actions

This page contains the following actions:

Journal Action Table
Action	Description
Actions > Functions > MEM Allocation Template	Shows the details of the entity allocation for the transaction line. You can change the entity allocation for the transaction line as needed. Any changes made are in real-time for the transaction line and do not affect the template. You can make any of the following changes: Edit the percentage of an existing allocation. Add or delete an allocation line.
Navigate > Header > Header Dimensions	For use with intercompany distributions, allows you to assign other dimensions to the header entity. When intercompany distributions occur, only the entity code of the header of the originating line is used in the distribution. In turn the destination line uses the entity code from the corresponding originating line.
Page > Edit in Excel	When editing data in Microsoft Excel, a column has been added for the header entity (BssiBatchHeaderEntityID). When the data is opened in Excel, the records are filtered according to the batch header entity specified on the page. For existing lines, this value cannot be changed. For new lines, specify the value to determine which batch header entity the new line belongs. For more information, see the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central documentation. Edit in Excel

Incoming Document	Attach an incoming document to the journal entry. Select Create from File or Select to choose the incoming document you want to attach.
Request Approval > Send Approval Request > Send Approval for Multiple Entities	Opens the MEM Mass Batch Processing window where you can select specific entities when you are sending batch approval requests. For more information see Approval Request Batch Processing.
Request Approval > Cancel Approval Request > Cancel Approval for Multiple Entities	Opens the MEM Mass Batch Processing window where you can select specific entities when you are canceling batch approval requests. For more information see Cancel Approval Requests.
Home > Process with Multiple Entities	Opens the MEM Mass Batch Processing page, where you can do the following types of actions: Post and print batches of journal lines. Delete batches of journal lines of specific entities. Note: The Process with Multiple Entities action has replaced the Post with Multiple Entities action as of MEM version 1.1.92.0. Use the Process with Multiple Entities action to open Mass Batch Processing where you can post and print batches.