Is this entry right before anyone posts it?

Two sides, and they must be equal

Every transaction changes at least two accounts. At least one line is a debit and at least one line is a credit. The debits must equal the credits, so the accounting equation stays in balance¹. Accountants call this double-entry accounting².

An expense and an asset increase with a debit. A liability and revenue increase with a credit¹. So the audit fee is a debit to an expense account and a credit to a liability account. The skill reads the type of each account from your chart. So it can check the direction of each line, and it does not have to guess.

Five entries at Northbrook Trading on 30 September

Northbrook Trading works in US dollars, on the accrual basis, with a calendar year. It keeps one company file in QuickBooks Online. The run is on Wednesday 30 September 2026. Other skills end with draft entries, and they give those drafts to this skill. Four of the five entries come from two other skills. The owner types the fifth entry in the chat.

• Three of the entries come from the September run of accruals and deferrals: the audit fees, the Pinnacle deferral and the utilities correction.
• One entry comes from credit memos and refunds: the Crestline Foods return, draft E2 on that page.
• The owner asks for one entry in the chat: move September's courier charges to the correct account.

The accruals run was in the same conversation, so the skill does not ask all its setup questions again. It asks one short question about the company: "Northbrook Trading, the same QuickBooks company file?" The owner says yes. The skill never builds an entry before the owner says yes to the company.

A cost in the books twice

The skill's own file names this mistake first. A person books a bill or a payment for an item that an accrual already covers. The cost then goes into the books twice. So before the skill proposes the audit-fee accrual, it reads account 2110 Accrued expenses and the supplier bills.

J3 is a correcting entry, and its date is 30 September. The owner closed August and reported it to the bank. When the original entry is in a closed or reported period, the skill dates the correction in the open period. The skill asks if the error is material. The owner says no, because 2,040 is below the $25,000 limit. So J3 goes through the Utilities account for September. The skill does not change or delete the August entry. J3's memo names it by its number from the ledger.

"Freight-out" is not in the chart

The owner writes: "Move September's courier charges, $640, from Office Supplies to Freight-out." The skill finds three courier bills in 6520 Office Supplies. They are 210 on Tue 8 Sep, 195 on Fri 11 Sep and 235 on Tue 22 Sep. Their total is 640.

Northbrook's chart has no account with the name Freight-out. That is a hard stop. The skill does not make a new account. It does not choose the account with the nearest name, and it does not write a placeholder, because a chart exists. It asks the owner. The owner names 6150 Shipping and Delivery, and the skill builds J5 again with that account.

Why stop? An import with an unknown account fails, or it can make a new account in your books. The skill's files name this one case as a hard stop. An entry that does not balance fails the balance check, and the skill never adds a figure to force the balance.

A memo, a reference and a date on every entry

Each proposal starts with a header. It gives the company by name, the entry type, the posting date, a reference and a one-line memo. It names the skill or the person that the entry came from. It gives the validation result, and it says that nobody posted the entry. The skill shows that header word for word as:

PROPOSED ENTRY — NOT POSTED

Good records show who did what, when, where and why. With them, staff and outside auditors can understand how a control works³. That source is the US government's internal-control standard for federal agencies. It is not a rule for Northbrook. We use it here because many people cite it for the control idea.

• J1 refers to the auditor's engagement letter. That letter is not in the books, so the coverage sheet marks it as a document from the owner.
• J3 refers to JE-202608-014 of Mon 31 Aug 2026. The skill reads the number and the date from the ledger, and not from memory.
• The period check uses the owner's date: the owner closed the books through 31 August. The coverage sheet says "user-asserted", because no setting in the books showed a lock date.

Auditors of public companies must select journal entries for tests. They look for some signs. Examples are an unusual account, or a person who does not usually make entries. Others are an entry at period end with little explanation, no account number or a round amount⁴. That standard applies to public-company audits only. Northbrook is not a public company. The signs help an auditor to select entries, and they do not prove fraud. The skill does not look for fraud. Its part is the memo, the real account, the reference and the flags.

Fifteen checks on each entry, and three flags

The skill's method has nine original checks and six more checks that read your books. A check that does not apply to an entry counts as not applicable. For example, no entry here is a loan payment, so the loan-split check does not apply. Five entries × 15 checks give 75 results.

Some lines go in an unusual direction. J2 debits revenue. J3 and J5 credit an expense account. J4 credits Cost of Goods Sold, because the returned goods go back into stock. These lines are correct, but each memo must say why. Each memo does, so that check passes.

The skill reports a count for each entry, and never a bare pass. For J1 it writes: 11 of 15 run, 11 passed, 4 not applicable. It names the accounts that it found in the chart and the period status. It says that it found no matching accrual or bill, and that 9,000 is below the limit.

Two requests it declines

The owner asks: "While you're at it, close last year's profit and loss to retained earnings." QuickBooks Online closes the year automatically. A closing entry would close retained earnings a second time. So the skill proposes no entry, and it names the closing-entries-and-trial-balance skill.

Then the owner says: "Looks good, post them in QuickBooks." The skill declines once, in plain words. It cannot post. It gives the five proposals to a person, who posts them.

The skill's own file gives the reason. A preparer makes an entry, and a reviewer checks it before anybody posts it. Separate duties help to prevent fraud, waste and abuse. A small company that cannot separate duties can add review steps instead³. In a study of fraud cases, a lack of internal controls contributed to 32% of frauds. Override of existing controls contributed to 19%, and a lack of management review to 18%⁵. Organizations with fewer than 100 employees have much lower rates of anti-fraud controls⁵.

Eight questions, in one message

The skill asks these first, in one short batch. It asks only for what it cannot already see. You must answer B, C and H. You must answer E only when the entry has a tax effect.

1. Use MosoFin for this run, or upload the data yourself?
   MosoFin is the connection to your books and the other platforms that you link. With it, the skill reads from there. Without it, you upload the files, and the checks are the same. The skill asks only if your account has the MosoFin tools. If not, it says once that the run is manual.
2. What event do you want to record? Give the amounts and any document.
   Required. The event is yours, and no connection can supply it. The skill builds nothing without it.
3. What is the posting date?
   Required. The date sets the period, the reversal date and the open-period check.
4. Which company does the entry belong to? For an entry between two companies of a group, both.
   Account numbers differ between companies. On the MosoFin path, the skill reads back the company by its name in your books and waits for your yes. In a manual run, it records the name that you give.
5. Does the entry have a tax effect, and in which place?
   Required if there is a tax effect. The skill adds no tax lines without a place. If the rules are not clear, it asks you and does not guess.
6. Above which amount does an entry need a review flag?
   This is the materiality threshold. The skill never chooses one for you. If you give none, it names the large-entry check as not run.
7. Which document is behind the entry, and does the entry reverse?
   Recommended. The reference goes in the header. An accrual usually reverses on the first day of the next period. If the document is in your books, the skill can find it.
8. Through which date are the books closed or locked? Did you already report any later period?
   Required. A search of past entries cannot show a lock date. The skill records your answer as user-asserted, unless it can read the setting in your books.

Then it reads the plan back and waits for your yes. For this run, the read-back can look like this:

"Building five proposed entries at Northbrook Trading: three from the September accruals (audit fees, the Pinnacle deferral, the utilities correction), the Crestline return CM-0421, and your courier reclass, against the chart read from your Mosofin connection, in QuickBooks Online import format. Books closed through 31 August; materiality threshold $25,000; sales tax 7.5% on CM-0421 only. Shall I go ahead?"

We wrote this read-back for the example, in the shape of the skill's own read-back. The skill's own example is a single accrual of $8,400 for September consulting fees.

Connect once, or upload the chart and the event

Without a chart, the skill cannot check that an account exists. Then it uses descriptive names only, and it labels each one:

PLACEHOLDER — REMAP REQUIRED

Proposals that a reviewer can post quickly

For one entry, you get a table in the chat. For several entries, it asks whether you want an Excel file before it makes one. Here the file is "Northbrook Trading_JE_September adjustments_2026-09-30.xlsx", with a Validation Results sheet and a Coverage sheet. If you say no, you get the same sheets as tables in the chat. After you see the results, it offers to save your account map, import format, numbering, materiality threshold and reversal policy. It never saves amounts, balances or entries.

Seven terms, in plain English

Journal entry

The record of one accounting event as debits and credits that balance. Accountants write JE.

Debit and credit

The two sides of an entry. The account type decides what each side does¹. They do not mean good and bad.

Chart of accounts

The list of every account in your books, with its number, name and type.

Reversing entry

An entry on the first day of the next period that cancels an accrual. The real bill can then go to the expense account.

Reclass

An entry that moves an amount from one account to another, with no new event behind it.

Control account

A summary account that a detailed list feeds, for example A/R from your customer records. A manual entry to one is a red flag for auditors.

Materiality threshold

The amount above which an entry needs an extra review. You choose it.

Where the facts on this page come from

The sources are two sections of an accounting textbook, a US government control standard, a US audit standard and a fraud study. We found each one on 28 October 2026 in search results. We did not open the pages, so follow each link for today's wording. What the skill does comes from the skill's own files.

1. OpenStax: Principles of Accounting, Volume 1, 3.5 Use Journal Entries to Record Transactions and Post to T-AccountsEvery transaction changes at least two accounts, with at least one debit and one credit. The debits come first and the credits follow, indented. Debits must equal credits. Assets increase with a debit. Liabilities, stock and revenue increase with a credit.
2. OpenStax: Principles of Accounting, Volume 1, Chapter 3 Key TermsDouble-entry accounting requires the sum of the debits to equal the sum of the credits for each transaction.
3. U.S. Government Accountability Office: Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government (the Green Book), 2025 revision, GAO-25-107721Separate duties help to prevent fraud, waste and abuse. Smaller entities that cannot separate duties can add review levels and review a random selection of transactions with their documents. Good records show who, what, when, where and why. It applies to US federal entities.
4. PCAOB: AS 2401, Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement AuditThe auditor must select journal entries and other adjustments for tests. Signs include unusual or seldom-used accounts, entries at period end with little explanation, entries with no account number, and round numbers. It applies to public-company audits only.
5. ACFE: Occupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the NationsA lack of internal controls contributed to 32% of the frauds in the study. Override of controls contributed to 19%, and a lack of management review to 18%. Organizations with fewer than 100 employees have much lower rates of anti-fraud controls.

No outside authority backs the 15 checks, the hard stop, the proposed-entry header, the QuickBooks columns, the $25,000 threshold or the 7.5% tax rate. They are the skill's own rules, or figures from this example. The skill's files also cite accounting standards for corrections and for foreign currency. We did not check those standards for this page. We made up Northbrook Trading and every figure in the example.