Double Entry Bookkeeping
Throughout the year, a business may spend funds or make assumptions that might not be accurate regarding the use of a good or service during the accounting period. Adjusting entries allow the company to go back and adjust those balances to reflect the actual financial activity during the accounting period. A prepaid expense is the advance payment for a future benefit that has not occurred. The balance of the prepaid account includes unused portions of any advance payments. A business may pay such expenses as property taxes or insurance premiums in advance of when the actual expenses occur.
A closing entry is a journal entry made at the end of accounting periodsthat involves shifting data from temporary accounts on the income statement to permanent accounts on the balance sheet. Temporary accounts include revenue, expenses, and dividends and must be closed at the end of the accounting year. If a company’s revenues were greater than its expenses, the closing entry entails debiting income summary and crediting retained earnings. In the event of a loss for the period, the income summary account needs to be credited and retained earnings are reduced through a debit.
What are Supplies on Hand?
Income summary is not reported on any financial statements because it is only used during the closing process, and at the end of the closing process the account balance is $0. When an asset is impaired, its fair value decreases, which will lead to an adjustment of book value on the balance sheet.
Supplies Expense
As part of the closing entry process, the net income (NI) earned by the company is moved into retained earnings on the balance sheet. The assumption is that all income from the company in one year is held onto for future use. Any funds that are not held onto incur an expense that reduces net income (NI). One such expense that is determined at the end of the year is dividends. The last closing entry reduces the amount retained by the amount paid out to investors.
For example, $100 in revenue this year does not count as $100 of revenue for next year, even if the company retained the funds for use in the next 12 months. There are two primary accounting methods – cash basis and accrual basis.
On the income statement for the year ended December 31, MicroTrain reports one month of insurance expense, $ 200, as one of the expenses it incurred in generating that year’s revenues. It reports the remaining amount of the prepaid expense, $ 2,200, as an asset on the balance sheet. The $ 2,200 prepaid expense represents 11 months of insurance protection that remains as a future benefit. When you buy supplies for your company, you record the expense in your supplies account. Once the supplies are used, they become an expense that must be listed on the income statement.
This may be done to keep interest charges at a minimum or to minimize debt obligations. The cash payment to acquire an asset results in a journal entry that will decrease cash, but will increase the property, plant and equipment account.
On the statement of retained earnings, we reported the ending balance of retained earnings to be $15,190. We need to do the closing entries to make them match and zero out the temporary accounts. Temporary accounts are used to record accounting activity during a specific period. All revenue and expense accounts must end with a $0 balance because they are reported in defined periods and are not carried over into the future.
A double-entry bookkeeping system involves two different “columns;” debits on the left, credits on the right. Every transaction and all financial reports must have the total debits equal to the total credits. A mark in the credit column will increase a company’s liability, income and capital accounts, but decrease its asset and expense accounts.
This reduction of the cash balance will be reflected on the balance sheet at period end. DateExplanationDebitCreditBalanceDec.31Adjustment200200Note that we are cycling through the second and third steps of the accounting equation again.
How to Adjust Entries for Supplies on Hand in Accounting
- A closing entry is a journal entry made at the end of accounting periodsthat involves shifting data from temporary accounts on the income statement to permanent accounts on the balance sheet.
- If a company’s revenues were greater than its expenses, the closing entry entails debiting income summary and crediting retained earnings.
- Temporary accounts include revenue, expenses, and dividends and must be closed at the end of the accounting year.
This advance payment will result in a journal entry to decrease cash. The reduction of the cash balance as a result of advance payments will be reflected on the balance sheet at period end. The balance sheet can help you understand the financial condition of a business at a particular time, but not over a cumulative period. The balance sheet is issued at the end of a reporting period and contains both the assets and the liabilities of a business. Income summary is a holding account used to aggregate all income accounts except for dividend expenses.
If the carrying amount exceeds the recoverable amount, an impairment expense amounting to the difference is recognized in the period. If the carrying amount is less than the recoverable amount, no impairment is recognized. The closing entries are the journal entry form of the Statement of Retained Earnings.
Balance Sheet
They are housed on the balance sheet, a section of financial statements that gives investors an indication of a company’s value, including what assets and liabilities it has. An adjusting entry is a journal entry made at the end of an accounting period that allocates income and expenditure to the appropriate years. Adjusting entries are generally made in relation to prepaid expenses, prepayments, accruals, estimates and inventory.
If another company buys the same computer to sell, it is considered inventory. DebitCreditCash10,000Accounts Receivable25,000Interest Receivable600Supplies1,500Prepaid Insurance2,200Trucks40,000Accum.
Temporary – revenues, expenses, dividends (or withdrawals) account. These account balances do not roll over into the next period after closing. The closing process reduces revenue, expense, and dividends account balances (temporary accounts) to zero so they are ready to receive data for the next accounting period. A business may decide to pay cash to acquire an asset instead of incurring debt.
Is supplies on hand an asset?
Supplies on hand refers to the stock of on-hand supplies of consumable items that is typically maintained by a business to support its operations. If the amount is more substantial, the cost can be initially classified as an asset, and then charged to expense as supplies on hand are consumed.
Using depreciation, a business expenses a portion of the asset’s value over each year of its useful life, instead of allocating the entire expense to the year in which the asset is purchased. This means that each year that the equipment or machinery is put to use, the cost associated with using up the asset is recorded. The rate at which a company chooses to depreciate its assets may result in a book value that differs from the current market value of the assets. Permanent accounts, on the other hand, track activities that extend beyond the current accounting period.
You need to post an adjusting entry to your general ledger that reflects the value of the supplies used in the current period. Closing the books is simply a matter of ensuring that transactions that take place after the business’s financial period are not included in the financial statements. For example, assume a business is preparing its financial statements with a December 31st year end. If the books are properly closed, that property will not be included on the balance sheet that is being prepared for the period on December 31st. The fundamental accounting equation can actually be expressed in two different ways.
In the case of insurance premiums, the business may be required to pay the entire premium in advance. As an example, a premium that covers January 2013 to December 2013 may be required to be paid in full on January 5, 2013.
For businesses, a capital asset is an asset with a useful life longer than a year that is not intended for sale in the regular course of the business’s operation. For example, if one company buys a computer to use in its office, the computer is a capital asset.
A mark in the debit column will increase a company’s asset and expense accounts, but decrease its liability, income and capital account. The term accrual is also often used as an abbreviation for the terms accrued expense and accrued revenue. Capital assets are significant pieces of property such as homes, cars, investment properties, stocks, bonds, and even collectibles or art.
