Bad debt / Allowance for doubtful accounts
A bad debt is a debt that the organization has decided to write off as a debt that will never be collected.
When a company decides to write off an Account payable owed it, as bad debt, it creates a Bad debt expense. This, in turn, creates an entry in a balance sheet account called Allowance for doubtful accounts.
The examples below illustrate how a company writes off bad debt and how these accounts impact each other. The discussion also examines the impact of writing off bad debts on the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of changes in financial position.
Writing Off Bad Debt
Allowance for Doubtful Accounts: Balance Sheet Example
Allowance for Doubtful Accounts: Impact on Financial Statements
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Writing off Bad Debt
Before there can be a Bad debt expense or Allowance for doubtful accounts, there must be an Account receivable. An account receivable is an amount that is owed to an entity, usually by one of its customers as a result of a recent sale or the ordinary extension of credit. A company that has sold and shipped goods to a customer, and sent an invoice, has an account receivable even if the customer has not actually paid yet.
When customer payment becomes overdue on an account receivable, the selling company will watch the overdue account for another 30 days, or 60 days, or some other time period, during which it continues attempting to collect payment. If payment is still not forthcoming, or if the seller has other reason to believe it will never be paid (e.g., the customer has gone out of business or declared bankruptcy), the seller may choose to "write off" the debt, as shown below. To do so, the bookkeeper will make two entries in the journal that might look like this:
Grande Corporation Date Account Debit Credit |
Double entry bookkeeping requires two entries for every transaction, one a debit and the other an equal, offsetting credit. Here, the account Bad debt expense is a normal Expense category account whose balance increases with a debit transaction. The other account, Allowance for doubtful accounts is an asset category account, but it is also a contra asset account. Thus, this account's value is increased by a credit (the reverse of what a credit does to a normal asset account).
Writing off the debt this way, incidentally, does not relieve the debtor of the obligagtion to pay. The seller undertakes the write off in the interest of accounting accuracy, but the customer is still liable for the debt. The seller retains every right to pursue payment by other legal means, such s engaging a collection service, or filing a law suit.
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Allowance for Doubtful Accounts: Balance Sheet Example
At the end of an accounting period, when financial accounting reports are prepared and published, the sum of receivable accounts appears on the balance sheet as Accounts receivable. However, another account, Allowance for doubtful accounts, also appears along with Accounts receivable to adjust its value downwards, as shown in the example below. These accounts appear on the Asset side of the balance sheet under Current assets:
Grande Corporation Assets Liabilities Owners Equity |
(See the encyclopedia entry for balance sheet for a more complete version of the above sheet). For working examples of interrelated financial statements and a full coverage of financial statement metrics, see Financial Metrics Pro.
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Allowance for Doubtful Accounts: Impact on Financial Statements
With the write off accomplished this way, the impacts of Accounts receivable, Bad debt expense, and Allowance for doubtful accounts on the financial statements are as follows:
- Income statement and Statement of Changes in Financial Position: The Accounts receivable figure is part of the total net Sales Revenues. Under accrual accounting, the company claims sales earned during the period, including those that are still "payable"
Both of these statements, however, may include a line item for Bad debt expense. On the income statement this normally appears along with other expenses under Operating expenses, below the Gross profit line. On the Statement of changes in financial position, Bad debt expense will be listed as a non cash expense. In both cases, the net result is to adjust the Sales revenues contribution downward. - Balance sheet: On the balance sheet (as shown in the example), the asset category account Accounts receivable has its impact adjusted downward by the contra asset account Allowance for doubtful accounts.
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