An examination of customers' accounts shows that accounts totaling $779 should be written off as uncollectible. Using an aging of receivables, the company determines that the ending balance of the Allowance for doubtful accounts should be $800.
What is the adjustment needed to obtain the correct ending balance of the Allowance for doubtful accounts??

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Originally Posted by eagles1012

An examination of customers' accounts shows that accounts totaling $779 should be written off as uncollectible. Using an aging of receivables, the company determines that the ending balance of the Allowance for doubtful accounts should be $800.
What is the adjustment needed to obtain the correct ending balance of the Allowance for doubtful accounts???

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does allowance for doubtful accounts has any other entries prior to the $779 were wrote off? Is not the entries are as follow
to record the wrote off
Dr. Allowance for doubtful accounts... 779
Cr. Accounts receivable... 779
to do the adjustment of the balance
Dr. Bad debts expense... 1,579
Cr. Allowance for doubtful accounts... 1,579
Cr. 1,579 - Dr. 779= 800
hope this could help you

The unadjusted trial balance has a CR balance of 928 (for allowance for doubtful accounts). The bad debts expense account has a 0 balance and accounts receivable has a 5000 DR balance.
Here is what I did:
Cr. To accounts receivable for 779 bringing the adjusted balance to 4,221 (Dr.).
Dr. to allowance for doubtful accounts for 128 bringing the adjusted balance to 800 (Cr.)
Dr. to bad debt expense for 651 bringing the balance to 651 (Dr.)

Thanks! :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eagles1012

The unadjusted trial balance has a CR balance of 928 (for allowance for doubtful accounts). The bad debts expense account has a 0 balance and accounts receivable has a 5000 DR balance.
Here is what I did:
Cr. to accounts receivable for 779 bringing the adjusted balance to 4,221 (Dr.).
Dr. to allowance for doubtful accounts for 128 bringing the adjusted balance to 800 (Cr.)
Dr. to bad debt expense for 651 bringing the balance to 651 (Dr.)

Thanks! :)

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OK you have to do two different entries for this question, first to record the wrote off, qand then the adjustment of the balance for ADAcc. When using accounts receivables to calculate uncollectibles you need to affect bad debts expense and allowance for doubtful accounts for the same amount, they won't have the same balance, but the adjustment needs to be for the same amount. When is not a direct wrote off remember that you need to debit allowance for doubtful accounts and credit accounts receivable for the same ammounts.

To record the wrote off
Dr. Allowance for doubtful accounts... 779
Cr. Accounts receivable... 779
To do the adjustment
Dr. Bad debts expense... 651
Cr. Allowance for doubtful accounts... 651
Unadjusted balance for Allow. For Doubt. Accounts... $928
Wrote off account... (779)
Adjustment... 651
Adjusted balance... $800
Balance for Bad debts expense... Dr. 651
Balance for Accounts receivable... Dr. 4,221

Maybe your book and professor explain it different than mine, but hope you find the info that I gave you useful. I am using the Financial Accounting , Information for decisions 4th edition by John J. Wild.