General repentance

The General reversal is a method of cancellation , with the faulty bookings in the double accounts to be corrected. The reversal is carried out by entering the posting record again with the opposite sign. The booking is then entered again with the correct data. Although it is often possible to carry out the same result with a subsequent posting or transfer posting, this is forbidden under the rules of the principles of proper accounting , in particular the principle of balance sheet clarity and balance sheet truth .

Example of a cancellation with correction

A customer's cash payment is accidentally recorded as € 2000 instead of € 200:

Cash desk (2000 €) to sales (2000 €)

Two booking records are required for the cancellation with correction:

Cash (- € 2000) to sales (- € 2000)

Cash desk (€ 200) to sales (€ 200)

The following posting record would result in the same balance on the accounts :

Sales revenue (1800 €) at checkout (1800 €)

In this case, however, the actual payment amount of € 200 and thus the underlying business transaction would not be shown as an individual item in the books, so the correction would be incorrect in accounting and factual terms. In addition, the cash register would show a debit turnover of 2000 € and a credit turnover of 1800 €. This also does not correspond to the real business transactions.