[lseymour9586]

Is the allowance method and the direct write-off method are both methods of aging accounts receivable?

[morgaine300]

Allowance method and direct write-off methods are methods of writing off bad accounts. That is a completely different thing than doing an aging of receivables. You can age the receivables without writing anything off. It's useful for finding what invoices are getting overdue or old. You are probably confusing them, because one method of estimating in the allowance method uses an aged receivable report. So you're seeing them being used together. But these are not methods of doing aging.

An aging is taking the due dates of invoices and separating them into categories by age. i.e. like Current would be anything not yet due, then like 1-30 days overdue means it's from 1 to 30 days past the due date, then 31-60 days, etc. The actual aging report would probably have those categories across the top, and then a list of customers down the side, and the amounts that fit into the aging categories listed under those columns where they belong. Then it should be totalled at the end. The method for doing this these days is letting the computer do it. :-) If it had to be done manually (what a pain), you'd have to literally just start looking at the separate invoices and putting them into the correct categories.

Assuming this is for class, I would not expect them to actually make you do an aged receivable report. (Unless it's with software.) More likely, they might have you figure out the percent of receivables you believe to be uncollectible, which will use the aged report, but that isn't the same as actually making the aged report yourself. i.e. they should just give you the totals of each category.

The allowance method and direct write-off methods are two different ways of recording uncollectible accounts. Direct write-off is done at the time a decision is made to actually write off a specific account. i.e. John Doe just filed for bankrupcty and you expect to never collect, so you write it off and expense the uncollectible amount. The allowance method is an estimated adjusting entry method, where you expense an estimated amount at the end of the year for future write-offs. (Matching concept you should have learned when doing adjusting entries. Match the expense for the year with the sales it goes with.)

The allowance method has two methods to use to decide how much to put into that adjusting entry. One is percent of sales. The other is analysis of the receivables. You use the aged report to do the analysis of the receivables. So there is a connection here between the two, but these aren't methods of doing the aging report.

[slwakefield]

A debit balance of 52000 at the end of the year. An aging analysis of the individual accounts indicates estimated uncollectable accounts to be 3350

[param24]

The balance in the allowance account before adjustment is$1000 credit .the analysis of the aging of receivables requires the allownace account to have a net balance of$1600.