@asal, I gave some some background on this in an earlier thread at Question about Sales of Inventory Items - #4 by Tut.
Since then, the ability to enter bank and cash account transactions through journal entries has been removed. Many people are fixated on long, detailed lists of transactions. But the question remains: what would you do with them? They merely duplicate ancient (literally from the days of the Italian Rennaisance) practices developed when there were no alternatives.
From a financial/accounting perspective, every transaction you record is the equivalent of a journal entry. But they are specialized versions in which decisions about which accounts to debit and credit are simplified for convenience. Many people have trouble remembering which classification of account to debit or credit for which types of transactions, leading to errors that are often very tedious to correct.
In summary, the purpose of the journal was never to provide a summary of activity. Rather, it was originally the only way to input information into an accounting system. It was always the individual account ledgers that mattered. But without modern software, the only way to make sure they balanced was to transfer information by hand from the journal.