Prepaid expenses are those expenses that have not been expired yet but their payment has already made in advance. There are many examples of prepaid expenses such as rent paid in advance, interest paid in advance, unexpired insurance You might be wondering what kind of account it is? As the name sugRead more
Prepaid expenses are those expenses that have not been expired yet but their payment has already made in advance. There are many examples of prepaid expenses such as rent paid in advance, interest paid in advance, unexpired insurance
You might be wondering what kind of account it is? As the name suggests it should be an expense but actually it’s an asset. When we initially record prepaid expenses we consider them as current assets and show them in the balance sheet. It turns out to be an expense when we use the service/item for what we have paid for in advance.
The entry for the above explanation is as follows:
From the modern rule, we know Assets and expenses increased are debits while decrease in assets and expenses are credit.
As this is asset, increase in asset therefore we debit prepaid expense and on the other hand we pay cash/ bank on behalf of that asset in advance hence there is decrease in assets hence credited. The entry will be as follows:
Prepaid Expense A/c                                                 …….Dr | XXX | |
          To Cash/ Bank | XXX |
when this prepaid expense actually becomes expense we pass the adjusting entry. The entry will be as follows:
Expense A/c                                                              …….Dr | XXX | |
          To Prepaid expense | XXX |
Let me give you simple example of the above entry.
Suppose you pay advance rent of Rs 9,000 for six months for the space you haven’t used yet. So you need to record this as prepaid expense and show it on the asset side of the balance sheet under current assets. Since you paid for the same the entry would be as follows:
Prepaid Rent A/c                                                 …….Dr | 9,000 | |
          To Cash/ Bank | 9,000 |
As each month passes we will adjust the rent with prepaid rent account. Since the rent was advanced for 6 months, therefore (9,000/6) Rs 1500 will be adjusted each month with the rent expense account. The adjustment entry will be:
Rent A/c                                                              …….Dr | 1,500 | |
          To Prepaid rent | 1,500 |
The process is repeated until the rent is used and asset account becomes nil.
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Any person, company, or organization that owes us money is a debtor. The amount that is owed to us is called debt. When you are unsure if a debtor is going to pay back the amount owed to you, then a provision for doubtful debts is created. Here, the debtor may or may not pay back the amount owed. WhRead more
Any person, company, or organization that owes us money is a debtor. The amount that is owed to us is called debt. When you are unsure if a debtor is going to pay back the amount owed to you, then a provision for doubtful debts is created. Here, the debtor may or may not pay back the amount owed. When the debts owed to us is irrecoverable, it is termed as bad debts.
Provision for doubtful debts may become a bad debt at some point. Usually, companies keep a small portion of their debtors as a provision for doubtful debts in accordance with the prudence concept that tells us to account for all possible losses. Provision for doubtful debts is a liability whereas bad debts are recorded as an expense.
Journal entries for Doubtful debts and bad debts are as follows:
EXAMPLE
If the balance in the debtors’ account shows an amount of Rs 20,000 and 5% of debtors are treated as doubtful, then Rs 1,000 is recorded as a provision for doubtful debts. This amount is deducted from debtors in the balance sheet.
Now if Rs 400 was recorded as actual bad debts, then it is deducted from the provision for doubtful debts instead of debtors. Further another 400 is added back to provision for doubtful debts to maintain the percentage.
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