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    akamom's Avatar
    akamom Posts: 8, Reputation: 1
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    #1

    May 24, 2008, 03:22 AM
    Unadjusted Trial Balance
    I am working on a final assignment in Financial Accounting, but I've gone completely blank. Where do the entries for the unadjusted trial balance come from? Is it the ending balances from the month prior?

    Thank you for your help.
    morgaine300's Avatar
    morgaine300 Posts: 6,561, Reputation: 276
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    #2

    May 24, 2008, 12:10 PM
    They are the ending balances from the current period you are doing. Ending balances from a prior month would have already been adjusted and would not include anything for this month. (And they aren't "entries." They're balances.)
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    #3

    May 24, 2008, 03:58 PM
    If it's the ending balances for the current month, where do the adjusting entries come from. This made more sense when I was doing it in the particular week that we were learning, here we are several weeks later and having to come up with our own data and I'm drawing a blank.
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    morgaine300 Posts: 6,561, Reputation: 276
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    #4

    May 24, 2008, 06:48 PM
    The adjusting entries for classes usually come from information the problem is giving you. The UNadjusted trial balance is pre-adjusted ending balances for all the accounts for this period. Then you do adjusting entries. With those done, you then have an ADJusted trial balance. That too is current period ending balances. So they're both ending balances of the current period, but one is before and one is after adjusting entries. Which is partly, I think, where you're getting confused.

    As to the adjusting entries themselves, the information for them should be in the assignment somewhere. Since I have no idea what you are working on or what type of information has been given, there's no way I can tell you where to get the information to do them. In real life, it's just experience and knowing what things to look for, but in problems, they have to give you some type of information. And really, this could be anything, depending on what you're working on.

    If I knew what you were doing, I might be able to help more. You're saying it's a final assignment, but that could still mean a lot of different things depending on the class and the book. Is this like a comprehensive problem? And is it in the book? If it's from the book and you give me the book name/author, and if I happen to have a copy of it (I have several popular ones like Warren Reeves, Larson, Kimmel, Horngren, etc.), I can at least see what you're doing. Or if it's from the instructor or online, if you can find a problem similar to it. My books are not current editions but that doesn't matter for this purpose. Or, if it's not too big and it's in Excel or something I could easily read, you can also attach it.
    https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/faq.ph...faq_add_images
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    akamom Posts: 8, Reputation: 1
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    #5

    May 25, 2008, 01:29 AM
    Thank you for your help. I think I'm beginning to get it, but then it's not balancing. So I'm missing something still. I have attached the Excel sheet with what I have so far. It's the PO7C file. Thank you again for your help.
    Attached Files
  1. File Type: xls acc225_appendix_c.xls (179.5 KB, 3515 views)
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    morgaine300 Posts: 6,561, Reputation: 276
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    #6

    May 25, 2008, 01:44 AM
    I downloaded it. I'm getting ready to crawl in bed at the moment, but I'll try to look at it tomorrow afternoon.
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    #7

    May 25, 2008, 01:50 AM
    Thank you.
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    morgaine300 Posts: 6,561, Reputation: 276
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    #8

    May 25, 2008, 01:54 AM
    Actually, I just took a quick peak to see if there was something obvious. I can tell you right now two quick things that were pretty obvious.

    One is that an unadjusted trial should not have 0's for all the revenue & expense accounts like that. They might not all have balances, but most of them should as they would have been being used. I can't figure how it balances, other than you perhaps stuck them all through the capital account. They close out to the capital account, but any drawing, revenue & expense postings should have been done to their own accounts. Balancing doesn't mean everything is correct. It simply means all the math-related & copying things were done correctly, i.e. each entry balanced, posted correctly, account balanced correctly, etc. But you can stick things in wrong accounts and still balance.

    The other thing is that where the adjusting entries are coming from is the bottom of the last sheet, the section that says "additional information." I didn't look through your entries yet... but I did notice you have through like (h) in yours and there's only five of them.
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    morgaine300 Posts: 6,561, Reputation: 276
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    #9

    May 25, 2008, 02:05 AM
    Me again. :-) Yeah, I'm supposed to be going to bed. LOL. (Can't help myself, though I really am going to bed after this post.) I was wondering where your trial balance came from, and suddenly realized it opened near the bottom of the page. So I scrolled up and found the ledgers.

    Well, I see a big part of the problem. You've already closed everything! Closing is the very, very, very last thing you will do. Except for the post-closing trial balance if it's required.

    Unadjusted is end of period, but before adjusting entries.
    Adjusted is after the adjusting entries.
    Post-closing is after the closing entries and is not on the worksheet. (And may not be required for this problem.)

    You can't close until you finish everything else, and you can't make adjusting entries and statements off closed accounts. Your unadjusted trial balance is more like a post-closing trial balance. i.e. you're doing your steps out of order. The accounts say they're correct, because when everything is done & closed, they will be correct. The problem doesn't know what order you did it in; it only knows the correct number is there for the very end of the problem and you aren't there yet.

    I will look at it more closely tomorrow, especially the adjusting entries, but that should be a big start on fixing it right there.
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    #10

    May 25, 2008, 02:51 PM
    After a slow night in the Comm Center w/ DPS (my real job) I was able to get closer to the final answer. Here's the updated, but still not completed file. I am still working on it, though. Thank you for your help so far.
    Attached Files
  3. File Type: xls acc225_appendix_c.xls (182.0 KB, 657 views)
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    akamom Posts: 8, Reputation: 1
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    #11

    May 25, 2008, 03:18 PM
    Okay, I am now just down to balancing the debit side of the Income Statement on the 10-column worksheet. I know that it is just a matter of putting the correct things in the correct columns.
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    #12

    May 25, 2008, 04:03 PM
    YEA!! I figured it out and completed the assignment. Thank you so much for your help.
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    morgaine300 Posts: 6,561, Reputation: 276
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    #13

    May 25, 2008, 05:42 PM
    Clough, you are very good for one's ego. :-)

    But seriously, thanks for the way you support everyone around here!
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    morgaine300 Posts: 6,561, Reputation: 276
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    #14

    May 25, 2008, 05:57 PM
    OK, we're almost there. I didn't check the entire (unadjusted) trial balance, but spot-checked a couple of them and it looks like things are fine. Plus it's saying correct on the totals.

    As to adjusting entries, everything is mostly OK. The letters are mixed up, but that's like the least important thing in the world. (I think you may have left the old letters.) As long as the letters match up to each other so that you can easily pull them off there to journalize them later, it's fine. (In my opinion.) Except, you have the two accumulated depreciation numbers turned around. The expense half is fine, but the accumulated on the store and office are turned around.

    The reason the adjusted trial balance isn't coming out is very simple. I'm surprised I didn't spot it sooner. Just glance down the columns -- you've got two things missing. :-)

    As for carrying them to the financial statement columns, remember that asset, liability & equity accounts are balance sheet, and revenues and expenses are income statement. The accounts are in order, i.e. asset, liabilities, equity, revenue & expense. So in order to get them over to the financial statement columns correctly, all you really need to do is find the split between where equity ends and revenue begins. Yes, you've copied them all into the income statement, but they need to all be on the worksheet columns too.

    One reason people are getting more and more confused on this stuff is because of these stupid templates. I hate them. I've watched understanding going down more and more over the last 2-3 years as these become popular. The whole template for the financials have been given you, and it takes no understanding to plug numbers into things which are already labeled and set up for you. (Not a comment about you.) Even if you take a serious look at them to make sure you "understand" them, people learn much better by doing things from scratch themselves. Since you are apparently at least near the end of the class I don't know if this comment will do any good (maybe someone else will read it), but I always suggest doing this work manually on a piece of paper first so that the learning process can actually happen. Everyone I discuss this with agrees with me, and yet the professors and publishers can't seem to figure this out. I'm sure the excuse is that in real life we do use software to do this -- but you have to learn first, then use the tools later. I could never use the software if I didn't understand what I was doing! :rolleyes:

    (And quite personally, I think all that scrolling back and forth getting numbers is a royal pain in the behind! And pretty much most students agree.)

    OK, extra commentary. :D
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    #15

    May 25, 2008, 11:13 PM
    I do have to say that based upon an accounting class in high school 20 years ago compared to this accounting class through an online college, I definitely learned more using the high school paper spread sheets versus doing everything by computer. I'm just grateful that I am through with this class and have come out with an 85 pre-final paper grade. Again, thank you for your help.
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    morgaine300 Posts: 6,561, Reputation: 276
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    #16

    May 26, 2008, 02:44 PM
    You're welcome. A B is pretty good, especially considering how many people hate accounting. (I admit, my mind isn't normal. :-))

    Now you can go celebrate!

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