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Katmac · Jul 13, 2009, 08:55 PM

What is the difference between a sales journal and a sales distribution journal

morgaine300 · Jul 13, 2009, 10:10 PM

(Not quite sure how this got posted twice, but can't find the delete button that used to exist, so I just wiped out a duplicate... )

morgaine300 · Jul 13, 2009, 10:14 PM

As far as I can see, nothing. A sales journal is generally where you would record sales you made on account. (Sales for cash generally go into the cash receipts journal.) It may or may not also contain sales taxes collected, and if doing a perpetual system, may also have a column for the amount for COGS and inventory.

I've never heard of a sales distribution journal, so I did a search on it. I found a problem showing one and it looks exactly like what I would call a sales journal, having A/R, sales and taxes. I found another one that was similar but had sales split down among several departments. (As though it were being used specifically for the "distribution" of the sales among the departments.)

That tells me right there that this could be book-dependent. (i.e. what does the author want to call the journals?) A company can call journals anything they like and put anything they want on them. Textbooks do use them in some common manners, but they don't have to. If your textbook is saying they are two different things, it's up to the authors of that textbook what they want to call them.

As far as I can see, though, they are basically the same thing.