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Accountant guide, part 3: posting, vouchers and the ledger

Post settled guest bills and supplier deliveries, write a journal voucher, understand the approval limit, and follow any ledger line back to its source.

By The Xenia team · · 4 min read

The new journal voucher dialog with two lines for bank charges and a balanced total

This is part 3 of 4 of the Xenia accountant guide: 1. Your overview and how the books work · 2. Setting up the books · 3. Posting, vouchers and the ledger · 4. Bank reconciliation and statements.

Post the folios

Open Post folios, or choose Open the worklist on your overview. Folios waiting to be posted lists each settled or closed bill that is not in the books yet, with its guest, the day it settled, what it charged and what was paid.

Before you post, choose What it posts on a bill. It shows the exact entry Xenia will make:

A folio expanded to show the journal entry it will post, with debits and credits by account
  • The guest ledger (receivables) is debited for everything charged.

  • Each department's revenue is credited (room, laundry, restaurant), and each charge's VAT is credited to VAT payable.

  • The payment is shown as cash or bank received, and the guest ledger is credited by the same amount, which clears the bill.

Tick the bills to post and choose Post selected. Each posts as one balanced entry, exactly once. A green message says how many were posted, and the worklist empties.

The post folios page after two folios were posted, with a green message

Below the folios is Supplier deliveries and payments waiting to be posted. A delivery adds to stock and to what the hotel owes the supplier. A payment takes down what is owed and the cash or bank it came from. Tick them and post them the same way. A Trial balance card at the bottom of the page shows Balanced after each step.

Write a journal voucher

Anything that does not come from a guest's bill is a journal voucher: bank charges, salaries, rent, a correction. Open Journal and choose New voucher.

  1. Check the Date, and say What it is for, for example "Bank charges for October".

  2. On the first line choose an Account and enter an amount under Debit.

  3. On the second line choose the other account and enter the same amount under Credit. Use Add a line if the voucher needs more.

  4. The box at the bottom shows Debits and Credits and says Balanced when they agree. You cannot post until they do.

  5. Choose Save draft to come back to it, or Save and post.

The new journal voucher dialog with two lines for bank charges and a balanced total

A posted voucher is numbered (here J000004) and shows the entry, who wrote it and when. Choose Attach a receipt or invoice to keep the paper behind it. Reverse cancels a posted voucher with an opposite entry, so the record shows both.

A posted journal voucher showing its two lines, who wrote it and a reverse button

The Journal list shows every entry. Filter it by Search and Status (Draft, Waiting for approval, Posted or Reversed).

The journal list with the approval limit setting at the bottom

The approval limit

At the foot of the Journal is an Approval limit. A voucher of that amount or more (the standard is ₦1,000,000) waits for someone other than its writer to approve it. Set the limit in naira and choose Save limit, or enter 0 for none. Vouchers waiting for approval show on your overview under Vouchers.

The ledger

Open Ledger to read the books by account. Choose the Account (or all), set From and To, narrow by Source (folios, vouchers and so on) or Search by number, memo or folio, and read the lines. The top line shows the debits, the credits and the balance before and after.

The ledger for the room revenue account with entries linked to journal entries and folios

Every line links to the journal entry that made it and, for a guest's bill, to the folio behind it. This is how you answer "where does this figure come from?": from the statement, to the account, to the entry, to the bill, to the person who took the money. Export CSV takes the lines to a spreadsheet.

Next: Part 4: bank reconciliation and statements.

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