Depreciation refers to that portion of the value of an asset that a company uses in an accounting year to generate revenue. Assets are written off in form of depreciation over time also called the useful life of the asset. It denotes the wear and tear of an asset over time. Suppose, a company namedRead more
Depreciation refers to that portion of the value of an asset that a company uses in an accounting year to generate revenue. Assets are written off in form of depreciation over time also called the useful life of the asset. It denotes the wear and tear of an asset over time.
Suppose, a company named Johnson ltd. purchases machinery for 50,000 that has a useful life of 5 years with nil salvage value. Then the yearly depreciation to be charged can be calculated as:
Is Depreciation a Cash Flow?
Cash flows are inflows and outflows of cash and cash equivalents in an entity. The payments made by the entity denote the outflows whereas the revenues or incomes of the entity denote the inflows. Talking about cash flows, depreciation is a non-cash item of expense which means it neither results in inflow nor outflow of cash resources.
In the adjacent Profit and Loss statement, a cash payment of 7,000 for electricity implies outflow of cash however, depreciation of 10,000 is merely an imputed cost to write off an asset or we can say, a part of profits set aside each year so that there are sufficient funds available to procure a new asset after the currently available asset is discarded.
However, cash flow statements are affected by depreciation. Depreciation is added back to the net profits while calculating cash flows from operating expenses since it is a non-cash item and has been deducted while calculating net profits in the profit and loss statement.
Depreciation does not directly impact the amount of cash generated or expended by a business but it is tax-deductible and will reduce the cash outflows related to income taxes. Thus, depreciation affects cash flow by reducing the amount of cash a business has to pay for income taxes.
Bad debts mean the money owed by customers who have gone bankrupt or the likelihood of who's ever returning the money is significantly low. Bad debt is a nominal account. A nominal account is an account that records the business transactions belonging to a certain category of income, expense, profitRead more
Bad debts mean the money owed by customers who have gone bankrupt or the likelihood of who’s ever returning the money is significantly low. Bad debt is a nominal account.
A nominal account is an account that records the business transactions belonging to a certain category of income, expense, profit or loss. The balances on nominal accounts are normally written off at the end of each financial year. For example, sales A/c, purchases A/c, interest income, loss from the sale of assets etc.
Why are bad debts A/c classified as a nominal account?
First of all, let us understand the other two types of accounts – personal accounts and real accounts.
Personal accounts deal with the records of the business’ transactions with a particular person or entity. For example Mukesh A/c, Mahesh A/c, Reliance A/c, Suresh and Co. A/c etc.
Real accounts deal with transactions and records related to assets. The balance in these accounts is normally carried forward from one period to another. For example “Furniture A/c “, ” Building A/c ” etc.
Now that we have understood the basic definitions of all three types of accounts, we can discuss the reason behind the classification of bad debts as nominal accounts.
A bad debt is a loss that the company has incurred. It may be due to bankruptcy of customers, customer fraud etc. The company isn’t going to receive that money. The bad debts are written off at the end of the year by transferring them to profit and loss A/c.
Thus, bad debts relate to loss and are normally not carried forward from one period to another. Hence, they are classified as nominal accounts.
Treatment of Bad Debts
Bad debts are written off at the end of each year by debiting them to the profit and loss A/c. The amount of bad debts is reduced from the amount of debtors that the company has.
A company may also choose to create a provision for bad debts for the balance amount of debtors that the company has after adjusting for bad debts. This provision represents a rough estimate of the amount due to debtors that the business expects to not receive. In other words, it is an estimate of customer bankruptcy that the business expects.
Conclusion
We can conclude that