Financial statements have to be produced accurately at the end of the accounting period for tax purposes. An accounting period may be a month, a quarter of a year, or a whole year.
The accounting cycle is the series of steps that take place in order to produce financial statements.
A term that describes the steps when processing transactions (analyzing, journalizing, posting, preparing trial balances, adjusting, preparing financial statements) in a manual accounting system. Today many of the steps occur simultaneously when using accounting software.
Following are the steps that complete an accounting cycle:
A record in the general ledger that is used to collect and store similar information. For example, a company will have a Cash account in which every transaction involving cash is recorded. A company selling merchandise on credit will record these sales in a Sales account and in an Accounts Receivable account.
Part of a company’s administration that is responsible for preparing the financial statements, maintaining the general ledger, paying bills, billing customers, payroll, cost accounting, financial analysis, and more. The head of the accounting department often has the title of controller.
Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. For a corporation the equation is Assets = Liabilities + Stockholders’ Equity. For a nonprofit organization the accounting equation is Assets = Liabilities + Net Assets. Because of double-entry accounting this equation should be in balance at all times. The accounting equation is expressed in the financial statement known as the balance sheet.
This current liability account will show the amount a company owes for items or services purchased on credit and for which there was not a promissory note. This account is often referred to as trade payables (as opposed to notes payable, interest payable, etc.)
A current asset resulting from selling goods or services on credit (on account). Invoice terms such as (a) net 30 days or (b) 2/10, n/30 signify that a sale was made on account and was not a cash sale.
Journal entries usually dated the last day of the accounting period to bring the balance sheet and income statement up to date on an accrual basis (as required by the matching principle and the revenue recognition principle).
Adjusting entries are made to report (1) revenues that have been earned but not yet entered into the accounting records, (2) expenses that have been incurred but have not yet been entered into the accounting records, (3) revenues already recorded that involve more than the current accounting period, or (4) expenses already recorded that involve more than the current accounting period.
A technique for allocating costs to a product, service, customer, etc. The premise is that activities cause an organization to incur costs. Once the costs of the activities have been identified and each activity’s cost has been determined, the cost of the activities is then allocated to the product, service, customer, etc. that required the activity.
This technique is more logical for allocating overhead than simply allocating costs based on machine hours or direct labor hours.
Also known as the acid test ratio. This ratio compares the amount of cash + marketable securities + accounts receivable to the amount of current liabilities.
A listing of the general ledger accounts and their account balances at a point in time after the adjusting entries have been posted. The grand total of the accounts with debit balances should equal the grand total of the accounts with credit balances.
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