Wages Outstanding Wages and Salaries Director’s Remuneration Advance Payment of Wages All of the Above
Yes, I agree with your statement that accounting information should be comparable. Comparability is one of the qualitative characteristics of accounting information. It means that users should be able to compare a company's financial statements across time and across other companies. Comparability oRead more
Yes, I agree with your statement that accounting information should be comparable.
Comparability is one of the qualitative characteristics of accounting information. It means that users should be able to compare a company’s financial statements across time and across other companies.
Comparability of financial statements is crucial due to the following reasons:
1. Intra-Firm Comparison:
Comparison of financial statements of two or more periods of the same firm is known as an intra-firm comparison.
Comparability of accounting information enables the users to analyze the financial statements of a business over a period of time. It helps them to monitor whether the firm’s financial performance has improved over time.
The intra-firm analysis is also known as Time Series Analysis or Trend Analysis.
To understand intra-firm analysis, I have provided an extract of the balance sheet of ABC Ltd. for two accounting periods.
2. Inter-Firm Comparison:
Comparison of financial statements of two or more firms is known as an inter-firm comparison.
Inter-firm comparison helps in analyzing the financial performance of two or more competing firms in an industry. It enables the firm to know its position in the market in comparison to its competitors.
Inter-firm comparison is also known as Cross-sectional Analysis.
I’ve provided the balance sheets of Co. A and Co.B to make an inter-firm comparison.
Here is a piece of bonus information for you,
Sector Analysis – it refers to the assessment of economical and financial conditions of a given sector of a company/industry/economy. It involves the analysis of the size, demographic, pricing, competitive, and other economic dimensions of a sector of the company/industry/economy.
One more important thing to note here is that comparability can only be achieved when the firms are consistent in the accounting principles and standards they adopt. The accounting policies and standards must be consistent across different periods of the same firm and across different firms in an industry.
See less
The correct answer is option B. Wages and salaries are debited to the trading account. The trading account helps us to determine the Gross Profit Or Loss that a company earns or incurs by carrying on its core manufacturing or trading activities. Let us discuss the above items and their treatments inRead more
The correct answer is option B. Wages and salaries are debited to the trading account.
The trading account helps us to determine the Gross Profit Or Loss that a company earns or incurs by carrying on its core manufacturing or trading activities.
Let us discuss the above items and their treatments in the final accounts one at a time:
Wages Outstanding
Firstly, “wages outstanding” is not debited into the trading account. It is a liability that is shown in the balance sheet.
Outstanding wages imply remuneration due to be paid to the workers for the services they have already rendered to the business.
Since the company has already received the service, it becomes a legal obligation for it to pay the wages to the workers for those services. Hence, outstanding wages are a liability.
Wages and Salaries
Wages and Salaries are debited to the trading account.
Wages Vs Salaries
Let us understand the difference between wages and salaries. Wages are the regular payments that are made daily, weekly or fortnightly. Such payments are mostly made to factory workers.
Salaries, on the other hand, are assumed to imply the remuneration paid to office workers and sales staff.
Wages are debited to the trading account, while salaries are debited to the Profit and Loss account.
Director’s Remuneration
No, the director’s remuneration is not debited to the trading account. This is because director’s generation is a business expense. It is a kind of salary provided to the director for the services rendered by him to the company.
Directors’ remuneration refers to compensation the company gives to its directors for the services rendered. It is debited to the Profit and Loss Account.
Advance Payment of Wages
No, advance payment of wages is not debited to a trading account. It is shown by reducing it to wages. Advance payment of wages implying paying remuneration to the workers before the commencement of the period for which the wages relate to.
However, one must note that if both wages and prepaid wages appear within the trial balance, then only the figure written against wages would appear in the trading account. There would be no treatment for prepaid wages.
Let us consider a scenario where wages of amount 5,000 is appearing inside trial balance. Outside the trial balance, the following information is provided
In the above case, the total wages to be debited to the trading account would be 5,000 + 1,000 – 2,000 = 4,000
Significance of the Final Accounts