The journal entry is a tool that we use to record a transaction, so that it could be posted into an individual account. There are four things you need to know in order to be able to record a journal entry. The first one is the accounts that are affected. The second is the type of account of that we're talking about, either asset, liability or owners' equity. The third is whether the account increases or decreases, and the fourth is the dollar amount. If you know those four things, then you're ready to write your journal entry. Let's talk about the format we'll use to write that journal entry. Each journal entry has a left side or a debit side, and a right side, or a credit side. The left side is written first. And then the right side is written underneath the left side and indented slightly to the right. Let me show you what we're talking about. We'll identify the account that we want to make a left side entry to, and we'll write the account name. Then in parenthesis we'll write the account type. To remind ourselves whether this is an asset, a liability, or an owners' equity account. Then we'll make a notation about whether the balance increases or decreases. And then we'll place, The dollar amount by which that account is affected. Then we move to the right side of the entry and we're going to indent that slightly underneath the left side, indented slightly to the right. We'll identify the account to which we want to make a right side entry or a credit, and we'll indicate its account name. Indicate the type of account we're talking about. Again, asset, liability or owners' equity. An indication of whether we have an increase or decrease in that account balance. And then the dollar amount by which, that account is affected. Now importantly, The left side and the right side entries must equal. And if the left side totals and the right side totals are equal, we've done a really nice job of recording that journal entry, and we can post it to the T-account. Now, in summary, recall that the left side entries would contain any increases to asset accounts or decreases to liabilities or owners' equity accounts. Remember, assets is on the left side of the equation. So if we have an increase to an asset account, it goes on the left side of the journal entry. The right side of the journal entry will contain any decreases to an asset account, or increases to the liability or owners' equity account. Remember that the liabilities and the owners' equity account show up on the right side of the equation. And so we record increases to those accounts using a right side entry.