Fictitious assets are not actually assets. They are expenses/losses not written off in the year in which they are incurred. They do not have any physical presence. Their expense is spread over more than one accounting period. A part of the expense is amortized/written off every year against the compRead more
Fictitious assets are not actually assets. They are expenses/losses not written off in the year in which they are incurred. They do not have any physical presence. Their expense is spread over more than one accounting period.
A part of the expense is amortized/written off every year against the company’s earnings. The remaining part (which is yet to be written off) is shown as an asset in the balance sheet. They are shown as assets because these expenses are expected to give returns to the company over a period of time.
Here are some examples of fictitious assets:
- Preliminary expenses.
- Promotional expenses.
- Loss incurred on the issue of debentures.
- Underwriting commission.
- Discount on issue of shares.
To make it simple I’ll explain the accounting treatment of preliminary expenses with an example.
The promoters of KL Ltd. paid 50,000 as consultation fees for incorporating the company. The consultation fee is a preliminary expense as they are incurred for the formation of the company. The company agreed to write off this expense over a period of 5 years.
At the end of every year, the company will write off 10,000 (50,000/5) as an expense in the Profit & Loss A/c.
The remaining portion i.e. 40,000 (50,000 – 10,000) will be shown on the Assets side of the Balance Sheet under the head Non – Current Assets and sub-head Other Non – Current Assets.Â
Here are the financial statements of KL Ltd.,
Note: As per AS 26 preliminary expenses are fully written off in the year they are incurred. This is because such expenses do not meet the definition of assets and must be written off in the year of incurring.
Source: Some fictitious assets examples are from Accountingcapital.com & others from Wikipedia.
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Profits earned by a firm are not completely distributed to its owners, some of the profits are retained for various purposes. Reserves are profits that are apportioned or set aside to use in the future for a specific or general purpose. Reserves follow the Conservative Principle of accounting. ReveRead more
Profits earned by a firm are not completely distributed to its owners, some of the profits are retained for various purposes. Reserves are profits that are apportioned or set aside to use in the future for a specific or general purpose. Reserves follow the Conservative Principle of accounting.Â
Revenue reserve is created from the net profits of a company during a financial year. Revenue reserve is created from revenue profit that a company earns from the daily operations of the business.
Various types of reserves are:
Different parts of profit are apportioned to create a different reserve and those reserves can only be used for purposes as defined.
While accounting for Revenue Reserve, the profit decided to transfer to Revenue Reserve are first transferred to Profit and Loss Appropriation Account and then to Revenue Reserve Account. In the balance sheet, Revenue Account is shown under the Capital and Reserves head.
Uses of Revenue Reserve:
Example:
Given that Revenue Reserve Account stands at Rs 1,00,000 and the company wants to distribute Rs. 40,000 as dividend to its shareholders. The treatment of this transaction in the financial statements will be-
Particulars                                                              Amount (Rs.)
Revenue Reserve Account                                                  1,00,000
(less) Dividend distributed                                                  (40,000)
The amount shown in Balance Sheet                                          60,000