Objectives and Types of Journal

The objectives of journal are :-
1. To record the financial transactions in a systematic way.
2. To show necessary information of the transactions.
3. To provide legal evidences of business.
4. To provide date wise record of transactions.
5. To help in the preparation of ledger accounts.

The types of journal are:-
1. General Journal
2. Special Journal
General journal records all types of business transactions in systematic,scientific and sequential order. It is used when the nonmember of transaction is limited and manageable in a single book. Normally, the term 'journal' is referred as general journal.
On the other hand, in large organization , it may not be possible to record the transactions as
and when they occur because of voluminous transactions. Therefore, these business houses divide journal into several division depending upon the need. For example, purchase book is maintained for the goods purchased on credit, sales book is maintained for the goods sold on credit, cash book is used for recording cash and banking transactions and so on. Thus, journal is divided into several books requiring separate persons. Such books as Purchase Book, Cash Book, etc. are called special journal.