Clone, correct or remove a manual journal, then check the month

Steps 6 to 9 of the journal entries guide: the recurring journal, the correction, a mistake removed or reversed, and the check before you say you are done. It follows Steps 2 to 5, where the rent accrual went into the ledger. The running example is GadgetSphere’s monthly depreciation charge and a RM 4,200 cost line that landed in the wrong cost-of-sales account last Tuesday (Meet GadgetSphere). Before you press VOID in Step 8, know that the select-all box on the journal listing ticks automatic journals too: tick manual journals one by one.

1. Step 6: clone last month’s depreciation journal instead of retyping.
2. Step 7: post the correction journal for last week’s misposting.
3. Step 8: remove or reverse a journal you posted by mistake.
4. Step 9: check Error Checking before you say you are done.

Step 6: Clone last month’s depreciation journal instead of retyping

Finance > Ledger and Journal Applet > Journal Transaction > [open February’s depreciation journal] > Clone

The depreciation entry for the Klang Valley branch fit-outs is the same every month: debit Depreciation Expense RM 12,500, credit Accumulated Depreciation RM 12,500, tagged to the same handful of branches. Instead of retyping it, find last month’s version.

On the listing, filter by Reference Number containing “DEPN” and Date in February 2026 - that single line for JV-2026-02-DEPN is your template. Click into it to open the View page, then click CLONE at the top. BigLedger creates the copy on the server straight away - a toast reads Cloned Document #N Ready with a View link - with a brand-new Journal No, identical accounts, identical amounts, identical branches and tags. It is already in the ledger.

This is the bit that catches people out the first time: there is no draft state. Open the cloned journal straight away (the View link on the toast takes you there). On its Main tab change Date to 31 March 2026, change Reference Number to JV-2026-03-DEPN, update the Description to read “March 2026” instead of “February 2026”, and on the Line Items tab adjust the amount if the asset schedule has moved (look it up on the asset’s Depreciation Schedule in the Fixed Asset applet; the March figure for the new KV branch fit-outs is still RM 12,500). Click UPDATE at the top of the page. The new clone now has the right date and reference; the March balances pick it up; February’s original is untouched.

One thing to know: the fiscal-period lock is checked when you create a journal, not when you clone or update one. So if February is already at LOCK_GL, the clone still lands in February, and nothing stops you from updating a journal’s date into a locked month either. The lock protects you from typing into a closed period; it does not protect you from cloning into one - which is why the date is the first thing you change.

Why is depreciation a manual journal at all, when the Fixed Asset applet has a depreciation run? Because the run will not post a usable journal for you. Pressing RUN on a depreciation run starts it, but the journals it writes come out with no lines unless two depreciation subledgers are set on the asset through the API (Fixed Asset › The depreciation journal), so the ledger does not move. (Where those subledgers were set, the run does post a DEPRECIATION journal, so search for one for the asset and month before you key yours.) The asset’s Depreciation Schedule in the Fixed Asset applet tells you the amount, and this journal is what posts it.

Watch out for: if you forget to edit the date, the clone sits under February’s date and shows up in last month’s figures - void it from the listing (Step 8) and clone again, this time editing the date before doing anything else.

Step 7: Post the correction journal for last week’s misposting

Finance > Ledger and Journal Applet > Journal Transaction > New

Last Tuesday, a manual journal posted a RM 4,200 cost line to Cost of Sales - Accessories when it should have hit Cost of Sales - Smartphones - someone picked the wrong account from the dropdown. You could open the original, change the GL Code on that line and press UPDATE - a manual journal stays editable - but last week’s reports have already used it, and editing it in place would leave them disagreeing with the ledger. Post a brand-new correction journal instead, so the mistake and the fix both stay on record. (If the wrong entry had come from a document such as a sales invoice, neither route is yours: correct the document, Step 8.)

Click New, set Date to 31 March 2026 (so the fix lands in the same period as the original), Reference Number JV-2026-03-CORR, and Description “Reclassify RM 4,200 from Cost of Sales - Accessories to Cost of Sales - Smartphones; corrects line on JV-2026-03-072”.

On the Lines tab add two lines: debit Cost of Sales - Smartphones RM 4,200 to push the cost into the right account, credit Cost of Sales - Accessories RM 4,200 to pull it back out of the wrong one. Tag both lines with the same branch and segment the original carried. Save. The two accounts now balance to what they should always have been; the original journal stays untouched in the audit trail; anyone following the description can trace the full story.

Watch out for: if you flip the debit and credit by mistake, you double the error instead of fixing it - void or reverse this correction (Step 8) and post a fresh one with the right direction.

Step 8: Remove or reverse a journal you posted by mistake

Finance > Ledger and Journal Applet > Journal Transaction > [tick the wrong journal] > VOID, or [open it] > UPDATE or CLONE

Say you have just posted the rent accrual for RM 38,500 and noticed you used the wrong reference number, or you cloned the depreciation journal and forgot to change the date so it landed in February twice. You have three honest options, and which one depends on whether anyone has already seen the entry.

If nobody has reported on it yet - you keyed it a minute ago - you can fix it where it stands: open it, correct the reference number, date, account or amount, and press UPDATE. Or remove it: tick it on the listing, press VOID, and press it again when it reads CLICK AGAIN TO CONFIRM. Despite the label this is not the void you know from invoices: it is a soft delete - the journal and its lines are marked DELETED, they drop out of every balance and off the listing, and no reversing entry is written. Then post the correct journal from Step 2.

If it has already been on a report, or the auditor would want to see the correction, reverse it instead: open the journal, click CLONE, open the clone, edit it so that every debit becomes a credit and every credit becomes a debit, set the Reference Number to something like JV-2026-03-RENT-REV and the Description to “Reversal of JV-2026-03-RENT - wrong reference”, and Save. The original and the reversal net to zero, both stay on record, and the description ties them together. Then post the correct journal.

Watch out for: automatic journals - the ones with a Document Type - are read-only on this screen (unless your administrator has switched on Allow user to edit auto posted journal, which should stay off) and are not yours to delete or reverse here. The accounting on them follows the document: raise a credit note against the invoice, or void the voucher, and BigLedger writes the reversing journal itself.

Step 9: Check Error Checking before you say you are done

Finance > Ledger and Journal Applet > Error Checking > Journal Not Balance

Before you tell your finance manager the three manual journals are in, run a 30-second sanity check. Open Error Checking from the sidebar and click the Journal Not Balance tab. This screen lists every journal header whose stored debit total differs from its stored credit total, one journal at a time. Every journal in BigLedger is meant to balance on its own: nothing splits one posting across several single-sided journals, and payroll is no exception - the payroll applet’s Post GL writes no general-ledger journal, and payroll prepared in another system comes in as an ordinary balanced journal that a person posts.

If the list is empty, your March work is clean. If journals appear, each one is a real imbalance, so do not wave it through. Note its reference, its date and the size of the difference. Under one ringgit is rounding between the stored totals and the lines, and nothing on the screen lets you correct it. One ringgit or more is a journal from before the balance check arrived in July 2026; if it is a month-end journal, read why a month-end journal listed here is a real imbalance and raise it with support before you post anything. An older manual journal you can fix yourself - click into it, find the line whose amount is wrong (usually a missing credit on the last line), correct it so the totals match, and press UPDATE. A manual journal you keyed today cannot be in this list at all: both the Create button and the server refuse an unbalanced one.

While you are here, glance at the Missing Journal tab too - pick a document type (say INTERNAL_SALES_INVOICE) and the March date range, and it lists FINAL documents that have no journal behind them, with a button to re-create it. Anything it shows means a document reached FINAL but its posting job failed afterwards - usually a missing default GL code, so the journal could not balance and was never written - and it needs fixing before month-end, not after. Map the missing code in Chart of Account first, then re-create the journal from this tab (or from Financial Report > Error Checking > Trace Document). Know what Create does before you press it: it first permanently deletes every journal still linked to that document, including a manual journal you linked to it through Server Doc No, and only then builds a new one from the company’s default GL codes. If the build is refused, the delete is not undone and the document is left with no journal at all. So re-creating before the mapping exists leaves you worse off, not just where you started. After Create, a good row reads SUCCEED in its Remarks column; an error code or a blank Remarks means the rebuild did not save, so check the document on Trace Document, fix the cause and create again. Once both tabs are clean for March, your three manual entries are in, the balances reflect them, and you can hand off to the financial reporting step.

Watch out for: this tab reads the debit and credit totals stored on each journal, not its lines. A manual journal you key cannot reach it - the Create button and the server both refuse an unbalanced one - so anything listed here was written before that check existed, or is a rounding difference (above). The reverse catches people too: if you delete a saved line on a journal’s View page, the line goes at once, the stored totals do not change, and the journal will not appear here even though its lines no longer balance. Never delete a line without adding its replacement and pressing UPDATE in the same sitting.

What success looks like for this part

JV-2026-03-DEPN (RM 12,500) and JV-2026-03-CORR (RM 4,200) are on the March listing with a blank Document Type, and Error Checking’s Journal Not Balance tab is empty for March. Then run the whole night’s success check, which wants exactly three such rows for March, the rent accrual included.

Common mistakes in this part

The rest of the night’s mistakes are on the front page.

Related documentation

• Journal Entries Guide: the whole night’s work, with its success check and the common mistakes.
• Ledger and Journal Applet: the Journal Transaction listing, Clone, VOID and Error Checking.
• Financial Reporting Guide: run the month-end profit and loss and balance sheet.