Journal entries of provision for doubtful debts?

Answer 1

The provision for doubtful debts is also known as the provision for bad debts and the allowance for doubtful accounts.

The provision for doubtful debts is identical to the allowance for doubtful accounts. The provision is the estimated amount of bad debt that will arise from accounts receivable that have not yet been collected. The provision is used under accrual basis accounting, so that an expense is recognized for probable bad debts as soon as invoices are issued to customers, rather than waiting several months to find out exactly which invoices turned out to be bad debts. Thus, the net impact of the provision is to accelerate the recognition of bad debts.

You typically estimate the amount of bad debt based on historical experience, and charge this amount to expense with a debit to the bad debt expense account (which appears in the income statement) and a credit in the provision for doubtful debts account (which appears in the balance sheet). You should make this entry in the same period when you bill the customer, so thatrevenues are matched with all applicable expenses (as per the matching principle).

The provision for doubtful debts is an accounts receivable contra account, so it should always have a credit balance, and is listed in the balance sheet directly below the accounts receivable line item.

Later, when you identify a specific customer invoice that is not going to be paid, you eliminate it against the provision for doubtful debts. This can be done with a journal entry that debits the provision for doubtful debts and credits the accounts receivable account; this merely nets out two accounts within the balance sheet, and has no impact on the income statement. If you are using accounting software, you would create a credit memo in the amount of the unpaid invoice, which creates the same journal entry for you.