# Other Actions in Journal Entries

Duplicating a repeat entry, attaching the working, and the monthly review that keeps journals from becoming the place mistakes go to hide.

![The overflow menu on an open journal entry, reached from the three-dot button in the record's toolbar. It offers Clone, Clone as Reversal and Create Template. A published entry cannot be deleted, so no Delete sits at the foot.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/journal-entries/journal-actions-menu.png)

*Create Template is the one worth knowing: a recurring entry is built once and reused.*

## Clone, or make a template

Depreciation, accruals and month-end reclassifications repeat with the same shape and often the same numbers. The overflow menu offers two ways to reuse one.

- **Clone** copies last month's entry once: the lines, the accounts and the descriptions, and you change the date and the amounts.
- **Create Template** turns the entry into something you draw from every month, which is the better answer for anything genuinely recurring.

- Check the date. A clone defaults to today, which is rarely the period you want.
- Check the amounts. Copying a depreciation figure is right; copying an accrual estimate usually is not.
- Update the descriptions. "Accrue September electricity" in an October entry is worse than no description.

## What cannot be deleted

| Entry | Deletable |
| --- | --- |
| Draft, or a posted manual journal | Yes. Deleting a posted one unwinds its effect on the account balances. |
| Void or reversed | No. Those states are the record of what happened. |
| Posted, generated by an invoice, bill or payment | No. Edit or delete the source document instead; the journal follows it. |

## Attachments and evidence

A journal has no invoice behind it, so the attachment is the evidence. Anything an auditor would ask to see should be on the entry: the depreciation schedule, the accrual calculation, the email agreeing a write-off.

> **Tip:**
>
> **Attach the working, not the answer**
>
> A spreadsheet showing how the figure was reached is worth far more than a note stating what it was. Next year somebody has to produce the same number for a different month.

## The monthly review

Filter journals to the period and read every one. It takes minutes and it is the single best control available in this module, because a journal is the only document in Finance that can post anything anywhere with no counterparty.

| What to look for | Why |
| --- | --- |
| Entries with no line descriptions | They will be unexplainable within a month. |
| Entries touching receivables or payables | They break the link to the ageing reports. |
| Round numbers with no attachment | Usually a plug rather than a calculation. |
| Accruals not reversed | The cost will be recognised twice. |
| Entries posted by someone unexpected | A permissions question worth asking. |