Post a COGS journal
Post your period COGS to Xero or QuickBooks, close a period, and post a reconciling revaluation journal.
Updated 6 August 2026
Once your COGS report looks right, post it to your accounting software as a journal. Landara recomputes the numbers on the server when you post, it never trusts figures from your browser, so what lands in your books is authoritative.
You'll need Xero or QuickBooks connected, with account mappings configured.
Review and post the COGS journal
- On Dashboard → COGS, set the period you want to post, then click Review & post journal.
- The review page shows the exact two-line entry (Dr COGS / Cr Inventory, with your mapped account codes) and every movement behind the figure. This is a preview: nothing is created and nothing is reserved until you act, so you can open it, look, and leave.
- Untick any movement that should not be in this journal. It stays unposted and can be journalled later. Movements from outside the period that have never been journalled are listed below and can be ticked in.
- Choose one of two actions. Create for approval records the journal as a batch for you or your accountant to approve, and reserves its movements so they cannot be posted twice. Send now runs the same checks and posts in one step; on Xero you choose whether it lands as a draft or posted.
The journal covers sales only. Inventory adjustments are excluded, because they aren't cost of goods sold.
A batch waiting for approval shows on the COGS report as awaiting approval. Open it to approve it, change its movements, or discard it. Discarding releases the movements so they can be journalled again.
Landara only ever posts what has not already reached your books. If part of a period is already journalled, the review page says so and the entry covers just the remainder, so posting twice cannot double your COGS. And if a cost changes while you are reviewing, Landara refuses to create the batch and asks you to refresh, so the figure in your books is always one somebody actually looked at.
Why a COGS journal can be refused
A COGS journal is Dr COGS / Cr Inventory, so your stock has to have been debited into that Inventory account before anything can be credited out of it. Three refusals enforce that, and all three mean the same thing: the opening entry has not been made yet.
| What Landara says | What to do |
|---|---|
| Confirm your opening inventory position first | Accept your opening difference on the valuation page |
| Your Inventory account holds nothing | Your accountant has not entered the opening journal yet. The valuation page shows it |
| This journal would take your Inventory account below zero | Some stock was never capitalised into that account. Check the valuation page before posting |
Without these you would be crediting an account nothing ever put anything into, driving it further below zero every period, and nothing on screen would tell you. See the journal your accountant posts.
Set your account mappings
If you haven't already, map the accounts Landara should use under Settings → Connections → Configure Tax Codes. Six slots, covered in map your accounts. For this journal you need at least a COGS account, an Inventory account, and Inventory before Landara so your opening position can be confirmed.
Close a period
Owners can lock a period once it's reported so costs can't be back-dated into it.
- On Dashboard → COGS, set Books closed through to the period-end date.
- After that, cost edits with an effective date on or before the closed date are refused. Post a correcting journal instead.
Post a reconciling (revaluation) journal
If your Landara on-hand value drifts from the Inventory balance in your books, post a revaluation from the Valuation page:
- Go to Dashboard → COGS → Valuation.
- Landara compares your on-hand value to the live Inventory account balance and shows the difference.
- Click Post reconciling journal: Dr/Cr Inventory against your Inventory adjustment account for the difference.
This is refused until you have confirmed your opening position, for the same reason as above: before that, Landara is comparing against the account that held your stock before Landara, so a journal posted to the new account would move something that was never part of the difference.
Journal history
Every posted journal is recorded under COGS → Journals, so you always have an audit trail of what was posted, when, and to where.
A journal posted to Xero as a draft says DRAFT here until it is approved, and Landara now checks for you. Opening the COGS report or Journal history re-reads any journal still marked as a draft and updates it, so the status you see is the one Xero holds rather than the one recorded on the day it was posted. You can still check a single journal on demand with Check status.
The same check picks up a journal that was voided or deleted in Xero, which matters more: until the status is corrected, Landara still counts those units as posted and will not offer them again.
