Purchase journal is like a register which records all the credit purchases. In most of the businesses, entities buy-in raw material or other stock items on a credit line in order to manage the working capital cycle. So, these credit purchases exist in vast quantities. Posting each and every credit purchases into the general journal makes the work complicated and difficult. That is why, accountant keeps these credit purchases separately into purchases journal.
A question may arise as to why we do not record cash purchases into the purchases journal. The reason is that accountant keeps this into a separate special journal called cash payment journal.
Format
There is no hard and fast format of Purchase journal which the entity needs to follow. It all depends upon the requirement of the entity and the level of description it needs in their records. Normally, the following format is used:
| Date | Purchase Order # | Supplier Name | Refrenece # | Amount USD |
| 23 Jan 2015 | 567435 | Raj | 4567 | 10,000 |
| 24 Jan 2015 | 567436 | Noor | 4568 | 11,000 |