What Is an Accounting Voucher?

What is an accounting voucher?

An accounting voucher is the record of one transaction in a double-entry system: which accounts were debited, which were credited, for how much, on what date and with what narration. Every voucher balances — total debits equal total credits — and the ledgers, trial balance and financial statements are all built from them.

The main types

Payment and receipt for money out and in; contra for movements between your own cash and bank accounts; journal for adjustments that involve neither; sales and purchase for trading transactions; credit and debit notes for adjusting them; and stock journals for movements of goods that are not sales or purchases.

Why the type matters

Each type asks for the fields it actually needs — a receipt asks which invoices it settles, a contra asks for two of your own accounts. That is what stops a payment being recorded as a journal that nobody can later interpret.

Documents become vouchers

In a properly integrated system an invoice, a salary run and a stock write-off each post a voucher automatically. Nothing reaches the trial balance by a side door, which is what makes it trustworthy.

The narration is not decoration

It is the only part of the entry that explains why. A year later, a voucher with a good narration is a fact and one without is a puzzle.

What is the difference between a voucher and an invoice?

An invoice is a commercial document you give a customer; the voucher is the accounting entry it produces. One invoice creates one voucher, which typically debits the customer and credits sales and the tax accounts.

Why must a voucher balance?

Because double entry records every transaction twice in opposite directions. If the two sides do not agree, something has been left out — and the system telling you that immediately is the whole point.

What is a contra voucher for?

Movements between your own cash and bank accounts — a cash deposit, a withdrawal, a transfer between two bank accounts. It affects neither income nor expense, which is why it has its own type.