Special Journal: Purchases Book or Purchases Journal, Sales Book or Sales Journal, Purchases return Book and Sales Return Book

Explanation about Special Journal and subsidiary book

Subsidiary books or special journal books are important parts of transactions for a company where accountant keeps records carefully. There are different parts of Special journal books and these are – Purchase book, cash book, Return outward and return inward books. The importance of record is there, and thus each transaction needs to be filled its related journal book. Each type of transaction is associated with some particular book, and thus in financial accounting, preparation of different books is very important. However, some special kinds of entries are not allowed to enter in subsidiary books, and thus these get entered in general journal or journal proper.

Explanation of different kinds of subsidiary books

• Purchase book or Purchase journal

This one is a very important part of Financial Accounting, in which transactions related to purchases of goods on credit, are provided in a particular book. This book is Purchase journal. There is a specific format of purchase journal on the basis of which transactions are needed to be recorded in a proper manner –

1. Date – This comes at starting point of the format to keep records as per date. Be careful as it may be a common field, but it is very important.
2. Invoice No. – Invoice is an important part to give proper details of goods. To maintain details, there must be related to numbers in which particular goods are related. To explain in details, invoice number is provided, and this field number holds the detail of invoice.
3. Name of the suppliers – Who is the supplier for a particular type of goods? The accountant needs to fill name of company or supplier in that place.
4. Ledger Folio – This needs to understand because it contains a particular page number and details on page can easily be accessed through provided page number in a purchase Page number is provided through the supplier’s book.
5. Amount details and total amount – This field contains that how many articles are purchased from a particular supplier. Total amount is there for total contents of each supplier.

One more important thing is purchasing of assets. In case of purchasing of furniture, typewriter, any other material the purchase book is not responsible to for its details. Purchase book is there to keep records for goods related to business only and not responsible for its assets. So, whatever goods are purchased for the business or dealing with a company only that should be mentioned in the purchase book.

• Sales Book or journal sales

What is the importance of sales book? Sales book is also a type of subsidiary book in which the records are available related to sales on credit. In addition, if any record relates to the sales on cash, then it will not be recorded in the sales book. Moreover, sales of assets like furniture and computers or different other materials are not recorded in sales book.

The format of sales book is completely same as per purchases book. Only the way of getting payment is just opposite as this is sales on credit.  The same format means the fields are – Date, Invoice number, Name of the customer (here the debited account number), Ledger Folio, Amount details and Total amount.

Purchase return Book

The name of this suggests that the purchased goods on credit may be returned to the seller in case of any defect in the products or in case of a larger supply from the company than the number of orders. The products can be returned in case of any mismatch from the provided sample on the basis of which a supplier gets ordered.

It means in a purchase return book, the records are mentioned, which are required to return to the supplier. Only due to this it is also known as return outwards. Along with the return note, a debit note is also provided to inform about the debit amount.

Sales Return Book

Sometimes whatever the host company sold to a customer or any other company may be returned by the purchaser. The reason may be one or many. This type of transactions takes place in sales return books, and the case of sales can not only is the host company has sold out this on credit. This is also known as Return Inward, and the customer gets a credit note. The company assures about the return items through a note as well as a credit note.

In this way, Subsidiary journal is important for the transactions. The above explanation clears that how to point out the particular transaction and how to maintain everything in a proper way. Thus, only in case of assets, the transaction is not done in the subsidiary book.

Links of Previous Main Topic:-

• Book keeping
• Meaning of gaap
• Origin of transaction
• The concept of debit and credit
• Subsidiary books or sub division of journal
• Classification cash transactions

Links of Next Accounting Topics:-

• Journal proper or general journal
• Opening and closing journal entries
• Balancing of ledger accounts
• Meaning of trial balance
• Balance sheet in final accounts without adjustments
• Adjustments additional information in preparation of final accounts
• Meaning of bank reconciliation statements
• Bills of exchange concept of bills of exchange
• Errors affecting or disclosed by trial balance introducing the concept
• Meaning of depreciation