Transaction Journal Fields in Accounting Subledger

Journal Types

On a transaction journal record, the Journal Type field indicates whether it's an allocation, a payment, or a transaction.

Note To prevent processing errors, we recommend that you don’t edit or delete journal types.

Allocation

Represents a specific amount of expected revenue or expense. For example, a scheduled payment on a committed gift is considered expected revenue (sometimes called a pledge). When a record is committed or promised, Accounting Subledger creates one allocation journal record for each fund account related to the record for a certain amount of committed revenue. We create such records only for amounts that are pledged ahead of time and with payment to follow later. They're not created for amounts that are paid immediately.

Transaction

Represents the whole, unallocated amount for paid records (not the pledged, expected amount). Accounting Subledger creates one transaction journal record for each record that's marked as paid, unless you configured cash flow grouping by fund on the associated accounting set. In this case, we don't create any transaction journal records. This journal type isn't related to the record's fund account allocations.

Payment

Represents the allocated amount by fund account for paid records (not the pledged, expected amount). Accounting Subledger creates one payment journal record for each fund account allocation on each record that's marked as paid, unless you configured cash flow grouping by fund on the associated accounting set. In this case, we create two payment journal records for each fund account’s allocation on each record that's marked paid (one for the debit and one for the credit).

For more information about creating journal records of transaction and payment types for debits and credits, see Cash Flow Grouping.

Amounts

Track amounts on transaction journal records using the Debit Amount and Credit Amount fields.

Dates

Accounting Subledger includes these date fields, some of which are on the Transaction Journal object.

Committed Date

A field on the source record that represents the date on which the record becomes committed. Salesforce sets this date to the date on which the source record's checkbox mapped to Generate Expected Revenue/Expense is selected. This selection tells Accounting Subledger to start processing the record as an expected revenue or expense.

Due Date (Transaction Journal)

Salesforce populates this date on allocation type journal records only if you enable grouping cash flows by due date on the associated accounting set. It shows the date on which the revenue or expense is scheduled to arrive and is copied from the related record’s scheduled date.

Payment Date (Transaction Journal)

The date on which the related record was marked as paid, as indicated in the field that you map to the associated accounting set's Payment Date.

Transaction Date (Transaction Journal)

The date on which revenue or expense is first expected, received, or adjusted. For allocation type journal records, these variables determine the transaction date.

• If the related record's committed date is before or on the current date and no transaction journal records exist, then Salesforce sets the transaction date to the committed date.
• If the related record's committed date is before or on the current date and there are transaction journal records, then Salesforce sets the transaction date to the current date.
• If the related record's committed date is in the future, then Salesforce sets the transaction date to the current date.

By default, a transaction journal record's transaction date corresponds to the date on which the record is created, which is when the Accounting Subledger job runs. To use a different transaction date, map a date field from your source records to the Transaction Date field of the associated accounting set. For example, you can use the date of the transaction activity itself. See Accounting Sets.

If you map your own transaction date, here's how Salesforce sets it for paid and expected revenue and expenses.

Type of Revenue or Expense	If...	Then, for the Transaction Journal Records...	Otherwise...
Paid	The source record's transaction date is populated.	Use the source record's transaction date.	Use the current date.
Paid or expected	The source record's transaction date isn't populated.	Use the current date.	—
Paid or expected	The accounting set has no date mapped to the Transaction Date field.	Use the current date.	—
Expected	The source record's checkbox mapped to Generate Expected Revenue/Expense is selected.	Compare the committed date to the current date. If the committed date is before or on the current date, use the committed date as the transaction date.	Use the source record's transaction date.

Custom Fields

If you need to report on financial information from fields that aren't on the default Transaction Journal object, create and add custom fields to that object and to its page layout, and then set up accounting field mappings.

See Set Up Page Layouts for Transaction Journal Records and Accounting Field Mappings.