How to handle late-stage journal entries

The recommended approach for late-stage journals such as shareholder salaries — raise them inside Zato to keep all workpapers in sync.

Zato is designed to be a final workpaper product. If you need to make late-stage entries — such as shareholder salaries, which are often the last adjustment in a set of accounts — raise the journal inside Zato rather than in your accounting system.

Why this matters

Once a Zato job has been started, all journals should flow through Zato to keep workpapers accurate and approved. Posting directly in Xero and waiting for it to flow through can cause workpaper mismatches and unnecessary re-runs.

Steps

  1. Post the journal via the journal function inside Zato.
  2. Once posted, navigate to the relevant workpaper (e.g. Taxation, Current Accounts).
  3. Click Sync with Partner and select Sync with Zato (Recommended).
  4. The Balance per GL in the workpaper will refresh to reflect the journal.
  5. The workpaper should reconcile correctly and be ready for approval.

The journal will also post through to Xero as a manual journal when you upload journals to Xero at the end of the job — so you do not need to enter it separately in your accounting system.