Drafts are payment instruments that enable direct communication between the bank of the payor and the bank of the payee. In accounting, drafts are considered to be a form of payment, and are typically recorded in the same way as checks or wire transfers. When a draft is used to make a payment, the amount of the payment is debited to the appropriate expense account and credited to the bank account from which the payment was made.
Accounting Example:
A draft Invoice is created and saved. No entry is made for Invoices with a draft status.
A draft Invoice is partially paid (e.g., $5 payment on a $10 invoice). When the partial Payment is added onto the draft Invoice, both the Invoice and the Payment are recorded:
Parent Account | Account | Transaction / Reference | Date | Debit | Credit |
Accounts Receivable | Accounts Receivable | Invoice / Invoice | Jan 1, 2022 | 10.00 | - |
Revenue | Sales | Invoice / Invoice | Jan 1, 2022 | - | 10.00 |
Parent Account | Account | Transaction / Reference | Date | Debit | Credit |
Cash | Petty Cash | Payment / Invoice | Jan 1, 2022 | 5.00 | - |
Accounts Receivable | Accounts Receivable | Payment / Invoice | Jan 1, 2022 | - | 5.00 |
Leveraging Railz to use Journal Entries for drafts:
Drafts are typically used as a form of payment rather than a source document for accounting entries. Nevertheless, if you do need to record a draft payment in your accounting system, the following steps can help guide you through the process:
Identify the account or accounts that the draft relates to.
Determine the date of the transaction. This will be the date you record in the journal entry.
Add the account name(s) and the corresponding debit or credit amount(s) in the journal entry.
Include a brief description of the transaction in the journal entry. This could be something like "Purchase of inventory with draft payment."
Payload example:
You can use our POST /journalEntries endpoint to add a $5 debit line item, for example, from the petty cash account and a $5 credit line item, for example, for the accounts-receivable account.
{
"connection":
{
"businessName": "{{businessName}}",
"serviceName": "{{serviceName}}"
},
"data":
{
"currency": "USD",
"currencyRate": 1.3,
"postedDate": "YYYY-MM-DD",
"lines":
[
{
"accountRef": "ID OF CASH ACCOUNT FROM ASP - SEE COA END POINT ",
"description": "LINE ITEM DESCRIPTION",
"amount": 5,
"type": "debit"
},
{
"accountRef": "ID OF ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE FROM ASP - SEE COA END POINT ",
"description": "LINE ITEM DESCRIPTION",
"amount": 5,
"type": "credit"
}
],
"memo": "SOME MEMO"
}
}
For more information: