A cash book (or cash journal) is an official document in which you record all cash movements. This applies to both self-employed individuals and companies.
💡 As soon as you work with cash, you are required to keep a cash book. Healthcare professionals are particularly affected, as they provide services to private individuals and therefore receive cash payments more regularly.
Even if you make a single cash payment, or receive a single cash payment from a patient, you are required to keep a cash book.
A financial-type journal
Accounting law requires you to keep one financial journal per payment method. This journal simply lists incoming and outgoing payments in chronological order.
The bank journal 💳
The most common financial journal is the bank journal: it lists your bank transactions in chronological order with information such as the date, the amount, or the communication reference.
It is the easiest journal to follow, as the information is already stored in a database (at the bank). If you are self-employed, BILLY retrieves your bank transactions through an automatic synchronisation with your bank.
The cash journal 💸
For cash payments, the process is the same as for the bank journal. You must record all cash payments.
In what format should the cash book be kept? Historically, the cash book was kept in a bound paper notebook where each page was numbered. This allows an auditor to verify that the information has not been altered. Today, you can opt for a digital tool. However, the software must prevent any modifications and must retain the entry date of each piece of information added. BILLY provides a legally compliant cash book to manage this with complete peace of mind 🏖️
👉🏻 Discover how to manage your cash book in BILLY
⛔ It is prohibited to manage your cash book in Excel. Indeed, you cannot guarantee the timestamping of each entry in the book, nor prevent modifications.
Contents of the cash book
The cash book must be completed in chronological order. For each payment, you record:
The date of the incoming or outgoing transaction
The positive or negative amount
The description or communication reference
The cash balance: with a digital tool, this balance is calculated automatically
Situation no. 1: transfer to a bank account
When you withdraw money from the cash register to deposit it at the bank, you must record a cash outflow. The movement will be of the type