If you are having to refund a customer money from an account receivable that means that
1. They overpaid on their account (or)
2. An entry error was made and they were over charged.
For example 1. Say Customer X paid you $500 on their account but only owed you $50. The original entry is going to give their AR a (credit balance) of $450. Because AR is an account receivable it maintains a Debit balance. To correct this and your company plans on paying them cash back (issuing a check), you will Issue the check for $450 and credit your cash account and debit their AR account. This entry will not effect revenue as it was an over payment and not actually recorded as Income.
If it's just an entry error, then simply correct it with an adjusting entry. Since the original entry is recorded as AR (debit) and Revenue (credit), reverse the entries for the adjustment amount noting why the adjusting entry was made. Since this was an entry error more than likely Income (revenue) was entered wrong as well.
The sum of customers unpaid balance or balance of account receivables in the General Ledger usually comes from a subsidiary ledger which contains an individual account receivable for each customer, the total of these accounts are summed and placed in one single account in the "general ledger".
sales ledger control account and purnchase ledger control account
A control account is a summary of the individual accounts in the subsidiary ledger(purchases or sales ledger) :)
a ledger account if made for credit sales.
Allowance for Doubtful Accounts
The sum of customers unpaid balance or balance of account receivables in the General Ledger usually comes from a subsidiary ledger which contains an individual account receivable for each customer, the total of these accounts are summed and placed in one single account in the "general ledger".
sales ledger control account and purnchase ledger control account
A subsidiary ledger is a group of similar accounts whose combined balances equal the balance in a specific general ledger account. The general ledger account that summarizes a subsidiary ledger's account balances is called a control account or master account. For example, an accounts receivable subsidiary ledger (customers' subsidiary ledger) includes a separate account for each customer who makes credit purchases. The combined balance of every account in this subsidiary ledger equals the balance of accounts receivable in the general ledger. Posting a debit or credit to a subsidiary ledger account and also to a general ledger control account does not violate the rule that total debit and credit entries must balance because subsidiary ledger accounts are not part of the general ledger; they are supplemental accounts that provide the detail to support the balance in a control account.
A control account is a summary of the individual accounts in the subsidiary ledger(purchases or sales ledger) :)
a ledger account if made for credit sales.
A control account is a summary account in the general ledger. The details that support the balance in the summary account are contained in a subsidiary ledger-a ledger outside of the general ledger. The purpose of the control account is to keep the general ledger free of details, yet have the correct balance for the financial statements. For example, the Accounts Receivable account in the general ledger could be a control account. If it were a control account, the company would merely update the account with a few amounts, such as total collections for the day, total sales on account for the day, total returns and allowances for the day, etc. The details on each customer and each transaction would not be recorded in the Accounts Receivable control account in the general ledger. Rather, these details of the accounts receivable activity will be in the Accounts Receivable Subsidiary Ledger. This works well because the employees working with the general ledger probably do not need to see the details for every sale or every collection transaction. However, the sales manager and the credit manager will need to know detailed information on individual customers, including whether a customer recently reduced their account balance. The company can provide these individuals with access to the Accounts Receivable Subsidiary Ledger and can keep the general ledger free of a tremendous amount of detail. Sourced: http://blog.accountingcoach.com/accounts-receivable-control-account-subsidiary-ledger/ (second result after googling "Control account balances and Subsidiary account balances" ps: lrn2google)
Allowance for Doubtful Accounts
Accounts Receivable.
Sales control account is a summary of transactions relating to the debtors balance.the debtors ledger account is debited when there is an increase of the debtors balance and credited when there is a reduction of the debtors balance
A subsidiary account is an account that is found in the subsidiary ledger. It is used to summarize the control account.
Accounts Receivable
debit