The accounting journal
The accounting journal turns a payroll run into the entries your accounting system expects. It is how payroll stops being a spreadsheet handed to finance and becomes a posting they can rely on.
Where: Payroll › Reports › Journal entry · templates: Settings › Payroll › Accounting journal templates You need: payroll rights, and the payroll settings right to edit templates
What it produces
A journal entry maps payroll figures — wages, contributions, taxes, other payments — onto the accounts your ledger uses. In KAMI's own words, you "create a custom journal entry by selecting the exact items you would like to be included".
The mapping is a template, configured once and reused every period. That is the difference between payroll being a monthly reconciliation exercise and a posting.
Before You Start
Get the chart of accounts from finance, not from memory. The journal has to match their ledger, not approximate it.
Agree the level of detail. One line per contribution type, or one line for all contributions? More detail makes their reconciliation easier and their ledger noisier. That is their call, not yours.
Agree cost-centre treatment if you split labour cost — see Cost centres.
How to set up and run the journal
- Open Settings › Payroll › Accounting journal templates.
- Create a template and map each payroll item to the account it posts to.
- Save it.
- From Payroll › Reports › Journal entry, run it against the batches for the period.
- Confirm the entry balances before exporting.
- Export and post.
What Happens Next
- The journal reflects the payslips as they stand, filtered by payslip status — run it on Paid or Closed & Paid, never Pending.
- A generated journal keeps the mapping it was produced with, so changing the template later does not alter what you already posted.
- Nothing is posted automatically. The export is handed to your accounting system.
Tips
- Check it balances every period, before exporting. An unbalanced journal is a mapping gap, and it is far easier to find now than after posting.
- Reconcile the journal total against the payroll run total. They should agree exactly; if they do not, an item is unmapped.
- Review the template whenever you add a new other payment type. A new type with no mapping is the standard way a journal silently stops balancing.
- Keep finance's chart of accounts alongside the template. When they restructure accounts the template must follow, and nothing will tell you.
- Run it in parallel for the first two periods — post manually as usual, generate the journal too, and compare. Differences at that point are cheap.
Troubleshooting / FAQ
Q: The journal does not balance. An item is unmapped or mapped to the wrong side. Compare the journal total against the run total to find the size of the gap.
Q: A new allowance is missing from the journal. New other payment types are not mapped automatically. Add it to the template.
Q: The journal disagrees with the payroll report. Check both were run on the same batches and the same payslip status.
Q: Can KAMI post directly to our accounting system? The journal is produced as an export. Posting happens in your accounting system.
Q: We changed the template — do past journals change? No. A generated journal keeps the mapping it was produced with.