Accounting Category: Assets

Accounting Articles

The matching principle tells us to expense costs in the same period that those costs provide some benefit to the company. Interpretation of the matching principle gets a bit fuzzy when dealing with research and development.

Most articles on this site deal with companies that operate for profit. In this article, we discuss a few differences encountered when accounting for companies that have non-for-profit purposes.

Most businesses have bank accounts. A number of situations can take place in relation to such accounts. For example, a company may have written checks in excess of a bank balance. Or a company may have a zero balance account and any checks that clear the company’s bank account are financed by a revolving line of credit. How should these transactions be recorded on the balance sheet? What about the statement of cash flows? In this article you will find answers to these questions.

Numerous suppliers (e.g., in the automotive industry) work with their customers to design and develop products or molds, dies, and other tools to manufacture such products. These costs may be called preproduction costs related to long-term supply arrangements. Under these arrangements, customers sometimes reimburse suppliers for the incurred costs. In this article, we will discuss accounting for such costs.

In this article we will discuss special journals and provide an example of a purchases special journal.

Fixed asset (property, plant and equipment) rollforwards represent an important accounting tool for period end closes, financial statement preparation and so forth. In this article we discuss the nature and provide an example of a fixed asset rollforward.

In our computerized world most accounting records are maintained in accounting software databases or spreadsheets, and accountants don’t think much in terms of general ledger or subsidiary ledgers like they did when most accounting records were maintained on paper. However, such concepts still exist. In this second part of the two-part article we will look at examples of accounts payable subsidiary ledger (i.e., accounts payable aging), inventory subsidiary ledger, and fixed assets subsidiary ledger.

In our computerized world most accounting records are maintained in accounting software databases or spreadsheets, and accountants don’t think much in terms of general ledger or subsidiary ledgers like they did when most accounting records were maintained on paper. However, such concepts still exist. In this first part of the two-part article we will discuss what subsidiary ledgers are and look at an example of an accounts receivable subsidiary ledger (i.e., accounts receivable aging).

In a classified balance sheet, current (short-term) and non-current (long-term) assets and liabilities are presented separately. In most cases current assets and liabilities are easy to distinguish and don’t present any issues with their classification and presentation on a balance sheet. However, there are certain items which may require special treatment because they need to be separated into the current and non-current portions. In the second part of this article we will discuss two items: deferred rents and notes payable.

In a classified balance sheet, current (short-term) and non-current (long-term) assets and liabilities are presented separately. In most cases current assets and liabilities are easy to distinguish and don’t present any issues with their classification and presentation on a balance sheet. However, there are certain items which may require special treatment because they need to be separated into the current and non-current portions. In the first part of this article we will discuss one of such items: prepaid insurance.

<< Previous    1    2    3    4    5    6    Next >>   

Accounting Categories
Accounting categories represent a collection of accounting guides and answers related to one accounting area.