Why use a journal? Why not streamline the process by avoiding the journal and adding transactions right into the general ledger? Why do you have enter every number twice, once as a debit and once as a credit, seems like more work? :confused:

If you are talking about 10 transactions a year, then sure, JE in the general journal do seem to be a waste.

But most companies have hundreds, if not thousands of transactions. By having them in a journal, it has everything in once place. If you have to go throu each account to find out what you did, that could be a lot of work.

For example, suppose you don't balance, its much easier to look at each transactions individually as opposed to going through the accounts to gather than information when it can just be posted in advance to save the time.