The journal entry may vary in contents depending on the companies' requirement. But some of the common entries made are entry number; batch number; recurring entry, non-recurring entry, date, accounting period, description.

There will be numerous journal entries that can be either a debit or a credit entry. To make it clear a column is named as debit the other as credit. Here, if the total of the debits and credits are equal then it is a "balanced journal". Otherwise the entry is said to be an "unbalanced journal".

In a journal entry the omission of transactions are limited, since they are recorded in the chronological order. Second advantage is that all entries are made with a related description to supplement the transactions. Since all the debit and credit amounts are written side by side chances of recording wrong amounts is less. Only with a single entry the whole history about the transaction can be got.

So in a business, if all the transaction is recorded in a single journal, it will look weird. Say, if an everyday transaction and a once in a way transaction has the entry in a single will make things difficult. Most companies have a separate journal for everyday transactions to make it more useful for the business.