LO 4 5 Prepare Financial Statements Using the Adjusted Trial Balance v2 Principles of Accounting Financial Accounting

An adjusted trial balance is an internal document used by finance teams to record the transactions of each individual account throughout the course of an accounting cycle. Although an adjusted trial balance is not often included in a company’s financial statements, accountants use it to keep track of all financial activities in one spot. They also make modifications to the trial balance to ensure that just one accounting cycle’s worth of data is included. Once all balances are transferred to the adjusted trial balance,
we sum each of the debit and credit columns.

• The sixth phase in the accounting cycle is to prepare an adjusted trial balance.
• Adjusting entries are all about making sure that your financial statements only contain information that is relevant to the particular period of time you’re interested in.
• If the debit column were larger, this would mean the expenses were larger than revenues, leading to a net loss.
• A company prepares a trial balance periodically, usually at the end of every reporting period.

In addition, an adjusted trial balance is used to prepare closing entries. Supplies Expense is an expense account, increasing (debit) for $150, and Supplies is an asset account, decreasing (credit) for $150. This means $150 is transferred from the balance sheet (asset) to the income statement (expense).

Why Some Accounts Have Incorrect Balances on the Trial Balance

To get the numbers in these columns, you take the number in the trial balance column and add or subtract any number found in the adjustment column. There is no adjustment in the adjustment columns, so the Cash balance from the unadjusted balance column is transferred over to the adjusted trial balance columns at $24,800. Interest Receivable did not exist in the trial balance information, so the balance in the adjustment column of $140 is transferred over to the adjusted trial balance column. Ending retained earnings information is taken from the statement of retained earnings, and asset, liability, and common stock information is taken from the adjusted trial balance as follows.

However, it’s an important step in preparing the financial statements of a business. The unadjusted trial balance is only prepared with a double-entry bookkeeping system. If a business operates a single-entry bookkeeping system, it doesn’t create trial balances. Also, it’s not necessary that a bookkeeping system always produces unadjusted trial balances from journal accounts.

An adjusted trial balance is prepared after adjusting entries are made and posted to the ledger. In this lesson, we will discuss what an adjusted trial balance is and illustrate how it works. To understand what an adjusted trial balance is, we first have to view an unadjusted trial balance as well as the necessary journal entries to complete in order to prepare an adjusted trial balance. Each month, you prepare a trial balance showing your company’s position. After preparing your trial balance this month, you discover that it does not balance.

How to Close an Expense Account

Temporary accounts are those that only hold funds for a single accounting period, whereas permanent accounts are those that hold cash for several accounting periods. By keeping cash flow distinct from retained earnings until your accounts are balanced, you can measure how much money your firm produces in a single accounting quarter. As computerised accounting systems automatically create financial statements, the second use of the adjusted trial balance has gone out of favour. If you’re manually creating financial statements, it’s the source document. The adjusted trial balance is crucial in the latter instance; financial statements cannot be generated without it. Under the accrual accounting, revenues are recorded when they are generated, not when they are received, and expenses are recorded when they are incurred, not when they are paid.

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At the period end, the company would record the following adjusting entry. Usually to rent a space, a company will need to pay rent at the beginning of the month. The company may also enter into a lease agreement that requires several months, or years, of rent in advance. Each month that passes, the company needs to record rent used for the month. You will learn more about depreciation and its computation in Long-Term Assets.

For example, IFRS-based financial statements are only required to report the current period of information and the information for the prior period. US GAAP has no requirement for reporting prior periods, but the SEC requires that companies present one prior period for the Balance Sheet and three prior periods for the Income Statement. Under both IFRS and US GAAP, companies can report more than the minimum requirements. Remember that the balance sheet represents the accounting equation, where assets equal liabilities plus stockholders’ equity. The statement of retained earnings (which is often a component of the statement of stockholders’ equity) shows how the equity (or value) of the organization has changed over a period of time. The statement of retained earnings is prepared second to determine the ending retained earnings balance for the period.

At the end of a period, the company will review the account to see if any of the unearned revenue has been earned. If so, this amount will be recorded as revenue in the current period. As you have learned, the adjusted trial balance is an important
step in the accounting process. But outside of the accounting
department, why is the adjusted trial balance important to the rest
of the organization? An employee or customer may not immediately
see the impact of the adjusted trial balance on his or her
involvement with the company.

Adjusted trial balance

The statement of retained earnings always leads with beginning retained earnings. Beginning retained earnings carry over from the previous period’s ending retained earnings balance. Since this is the first month of business for Printing Plus, there is no beginning retained earnings balance. Notice the net income of $4,665 from the income statement is carried over to the statement of retained earnings. Dividends are taken away from the sum of beginning retained earnings and net income to get the ending retained earnings balance of $4,565 for January. This ending retained earnings balance is transferred to the balance sheet.

The accounting equation is balanced, as
shown on the balance sheet, because total assets equal $29,965 as
do the total liabilities and stockholders’ equity. The statement of retained earnings always leads with beginning
retained earnings. Beginning retained earnings carry over from the
previous period’s ending retained earnings balance.

The adjusted trial balance is prepared to show updated balances after adjusting entries have been made. Once all balances are transferred to the unadjusted trial balance, we will sum each of the debit and credit columns. The debit and credit columns both total $34,000, which means they are equal and in balance. However, just because the column totals are equal and in balance, we are still not guaranteed that a mistake is not present. Recall from Analyzing and Recording Transactions that prepaid expenses (prepayments) are assets for which advanced payment has occurred, before the company can benefit from use. As soon as the asset has provided benefit to the company, the value of the asset used is transferred from the balance sheet to the income statement as an expense.

Remember that adding debits and credits is like adding positive and negative numbers. This means the $600 debit is subtracted from the $4,000 credit to get a credit balance of $3,400 that is translated to the adjusted trial balance column. The unadjusted trial balance report is prepared at the end of an accounting period. An adjusted trial balance is formatted exactly like an unadjusted trial balance. Three columns are used to display the account names, debits, and credits with the debit balances listed in the left column and the credit balances are listed on the right. In the Universal CPA Review FAR materials, we simulate the experience of starting with an unadjusted trial balance, recording several key adjusting entries, and then arriving at the adjusted trial balance.

Definition of an Adjusted Trial Balance

Unearned revenue had a credit balance of $4,000 in the trial
balance column, and a debit adjustment of $600 in the adjustment
column. Remember that adding debits and credits is like adding
positive and negative numbers. This means the $600 debit top financial forecasting methods explained is
subtracted from the $4,000 credit to get a credit balance of $3,400
that is translated to the adjusted trial balance column. A trial balance can be used to detect any mathematical errors that have occurred in a double entry accounting system.

Once we add the $4,665 to the
credit side of the balance sheet column, the two columns equal
$30,140. In the Printing Plus case, the credit side is the higher figure
at $10,240. This means
revenues exceed expenses, thus giving the company a net income. If
the debit column were larger, this would mean the expenses were
larger than revenues, leading to a net loss. You want to calculate
the net income and enter it onto the worksheet.