I need to see a format for a Balance Sheet entry on Allowance for Doubtful Accounts and Accounts Receivable entries.

I'm not sure how to title and credit/debit these entires.

Thank you,

Diane

Entries for Accounts receivable:

1) We debit accounts receivable when we sold items on account and the entry would be:(example sale on account for $100,000)

Accounts Receivable 100,000
Sales 100,000

2) when we collect portion of this sale we credit accounts receivable to reduced it by the portion already paid and entry would be (say paid 50% of the account)

Cash 50,000
Accounts Receivable 50,000

Allowance for Doubtful accounts are provisions set for certain portion of receivable which the company estimates would be uncollectible. The entry would be (example $5,000 will be considered uncollectible)

Doubtful Account Expense 5,000
Allowance for doubtful Accounts 5,000

In the Balance sheet this would be presented as follows based on the given figure above

Accounts Receivable 50,000
Less: Allowance for Doubtful accounts 5,000
Net Receivable 45,000


Hope I answered your question.

:say we have the following as a starting point:

Accounts Receivable 50,000
Less: Allowance for Doubtful accounts 5,000
Net Receivable 45,000

Now if during the same year we become sure of not collecting the AFDA of 5000 and we need to write-off this amount (and say we are not replenishing the AFDA account). What will happen to the B/S and the income statement for the period.? Would the 2 look something like this:

B/S:-

Accounts Receivable 45,000
Less: Allowance for Doubtful accounts 0 (so this line is omitted)
Net Receivable 45,000

Income statement:-

loss on AFDA = (5000)
so this amount gets deducted from the EBT (earning before taxes)..

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Many thanks.