What is a Cash Receipts Journal?

A cash receipts journal is a subsidiary ledger in which cash sales are recorded. This journal is used to offload transaction volume from the general ledger, where it might otherwise clutter up the general ledger. The cash receipts journal is most commonly found in manual accounting systems. The concept is essentially invisible in many accounting software packages.

What Information is Included in a Cash Receipts Journal?

The cash receipts journal contains the following fields:

The date of each cash receipt
Customer name
Identification of cash receipt, which may be any of the following:
- Check number paid
- Customer name
- Invoice paid
Debit and credit columns to record both sides of each entry; the normal entry is a debit to cash and a credit to sales

There may be a large number of entries into this journal, depending on the frequency of cash receipts from customers.

Posting the Cash Receipts Journal

The balance in the cash receipts journal is regularly summarized into an aggregate amount and posted to the general ledger. At a minimum, the transactions in the journal should be posted to the general ledger at the end of each reporting period, though posting may be conducted on a daily basis.

Cash Receipts Journal Investigations

If someone needs to investigate a specific cash receipt, they might begin at the general ledger and then move down to the cash receipts journal, from which they might obtain a reference to the specific receipt. The accountant would then use the reference number obtained from the journal to search through source materials and identify the specific receipt in question.