In at least one embodiment of the present invention, a computer implemented method for journalizing financial information for a multi-company accounting system is provided. The method comprises creating a journal. Input detail lines of the financial data are entered to define the journal. The journal is released within the multi-company accounting system to limit changes to the input detail lines to define a released journal. Multi-company detail lines are added to the released journal including for a sum that is not zero of the debits and credits by GL date for a corresponding company of the multi-company group that is not the main company of the journal, the multi-company accounting system will automatically add a pair of the multi-company detail lines to balance monies owed between the main company and the corresponding company.