Can you please explain income and expenditure account?

The “Income and Expenditure” account lists all the income and expenses incurred by the entity throughout the year. This account is very identical to the profit and loss account and is generally prepared on an accrual basis irrespective of whether the amount is received or paid. Non-profit organizations (NPO) prepare this type of account to ascertain surplus earned or deficit incurred by them during the period.

Talking about the format of income and expenditure accounts we generally see that all the expenses are recorded on the debit side while all incomes are recorded on the credit side. One important thing to note is that items so recorded are revenue items while capital nature items are generally ignored because only current period items are recorded in this statement.

Since it is a Nominal account, we follow the golden rules to prepare this, stating “debit all expenses and losses and credit all incomes and gains”. The closing balance at the end shows the surplus or deficit for the year. If the balancing figure appears on the debit side it is surplus and if the balancing figure appears on the credit side it is a deficit for the entity.

Following is the format of income and expenditure account