The Accounting Process

The Accounting Process
(The Accounting Cycle)

The accounting process is a series of activities that begins with a transaction and ends with the closing of the books. Because this process is repeated each reporting period, it is referred to as the accounting cycle and includes these major steps:

Identify the transaction or other recognizable event.
Prepare the transaction's source document such as a purchase order or invoice.
Analyze and classify the transaction. This step involves quantifying the transaction in monetary terms (e.g. dollars and cents), identifying the accounts that are affected and whether those accounts are to be debited or credited.
Record the transaction by making entries in the appropriate journal, such as the sales journal, purchase journal, cash receipt or disbursement journal, or the Such entries are made in chronological order.
Post general journal entries to the ledger accounts.
Note: The above steps are performed throughout the accounting period as transactions occur or in periodic batch processes. The following steps are performed at the end of the accounting period:
Prepare the trail balance to make sure that debits equal credits. The trial balance is a listing of all of the ledger accounts, with debits in the left column and credits in the right column. At this point no adjusting entries have been made. The actual sum of each column is not meaningful; what is important is that the sums be equal. Note that while out-of-balance columns indicate a recording error, balanced columns do not guarantee that there are no errors. For example, not recording a transaction or recording it in the wrong account would not cause an imbalance.
Correct any discrepancies in the trial balance. If the columns are not in balance, look for math errors, posting errors, and recording errors. Posting errors include:
- posting of the wrong amount,
- omitting a posting,
- posting in the wrong column, or
- posting more than once.
repare adjusting entries to record accrued, deferred, and estimated amounts.
ost adjusting entries to the ledger accounts.
repare the adjusted trial balance. This step is similar to the preparation of the unadjusted trial balance, but this time the adjusting entries are included. Correct any errors that may be found.
repare the financial statements.
- Income statement: prepared from the revenue, expenses, gains, and losses.
- Balance sheet: prepared from the assets, liabilities, and equity accounts.
- Statement of retained earnings: prepared from net income and dividend information.
- Cash flow statement: derived from the other financial statements using either the direct or indirect method.
repare closing journal entries that close temporary accounts such as revenues, expenses, gains, and losses. These accounts are closed to a temporary income summary account, from which the balance is transferred to the retained earnings account (capital). Any dividend or withdrawal accounts also are closed to capital.
ost closing entries to the ledger accounts.
repare the after-closing trial balance to make sure that debits equal credits. At this point, only the permanent accounts appear since the temporary ones have been closed. Correct any errors.
repare reversing journal entries (optional). Reversing journal entries often are used when there has been an accrual or deferral that was recorded as an adjusting entry on the last day of the accounting period. By reversing the adjusting entry, one avoids double counting the amount when the transaction occurs in the next period. A reversing journal entry is recorded on the first day of the new period.

Instead of preparing the financial statements before the closing journal entries, it is possible to prepare them afterwards, using a temporary income summary account to collect the balances of the temporary ledger accounts (revenues, expenses, gains, losses, etc.) when they are closed. The temporary income summary account then would be closed when preparing the financial statements.

Adjusting Entries

Adjusting entries are journal entries made at the end of the accounting period to allocate revenue and expenses to the period in which they actually are applicable. Adjusting entries are required because normal journal entries are based on actual transactions, and the date on which these transactions occur may not be the date required to fulfill the matching principle of accrual accounting.

The two major types of adjusting entries are:

Accruals: for revenues and expenses that are matched to dates before the transaction has been recorded.
Deferrals: for revenues and expenses that are matched to dates after the transaction has been recorded.

Accruals

Accrued items are those for which the firm has been realizing revenue or expense without yet observing an actual transaction that would result in a journal entry. For example, consider the case of salaried employees who are paid on the first of the month for the salary they earned over the previous month. Each day of the month, the firm accrues an additional liability in the form of salaries to be paid on the first day of the next month, but the transaction does not actually occur until the paychecks are issued on the first of the month. In order to report the expense in the period in which it was incurred, an adjusting entry is made at the end of the month. For example, in the case of a small company accruing $80,000 in monthly salaries, the journal entry might look like the following:

Date	Account Titles & Explanation	Debit	Credit
9/30	Salary expense	80,000
	Salaries payable		80,000
	Salaries accrued in September, to be paid on Oct 1.

In theory, the accrued salary could be recorded each day, but daily updates of such accruals on a large scale would be costly and would serve little purpose - the adjustment only is needed at the end of the period for which the financial statements are being prepared.

Some accrued items for which adjusting entries may be made include:

Salaries
Past-due expenses
Income tax expense
Interest income
Unbilled revenue

Deferrals

Deferred items are those for which the firm has recorded the transaction as a journal entry, but has not yet realized the revenue or expense associated with that journal entry. In other words, the recognition of deferred items is postponed until a later accounting period. An example of a deferred item would be prepaid insurance. Suppose the firm prepays a 12-month insurance policy on Sep 1. Because the insurance is a prepaid expense, the journal entry on Sep 1 would look like the following:

Date	Account Titles & Explanation	Debit	Credit
9/1	Prepaid Expenses	12,000
	Cash		12,000
	12-month prepaid insurance policy.

The result of this entry is that the insurance policy becomes an asset in the Prepaid Expenses account. At the end of September, this asset will be adjusted to reflect the amount "consumed" during the month. The adjusting entry would be:

Date	Account Titles & Explanation	Debit	Credit
9/30	Insurance Expense	1,000
	Prepaid Expenses		1,000
	Insurance expense for Sep.

This adjusting entry transfers $1000 from the Prepaid Expenses asset account to the Insurance Expense expense account to properly record the insurance expense for the month of September. In this example, a similar adjusting entry would be made for each subsequent month until the insurance policy expires 11 months later.

Some deferred items for which adjusting entries would be made include:

Prepaid insurance
Prepaid rent
Office supplies
Depreciation
Unearned revenue

In the case of unearned revenue, a liability account is credited when the cash is received. An adjusting entry is made once the service has been rendered or the product has been shipped, thus realizing the revenue.

Completing the Adjusting Entries

To prevent inadvertent omission of some adjusting entries, it is helpful to review the ones from the previous accounting period since such transactions often recur. It also helps to talk to various people in the company who might know about unbilled revenue or other items that might require adjustments.

The Balanced Scorecard

Traditional financial performance metrics provide information about a firm's past results, but are not well-suited for predicting future performance or for implementing and controlling the firm's strategic plan. By analyzing perspectives other than the financial one, managers can better translate the organization's strategy into actionable objectives and better measure how well the strategic plan is executing.

The Balanced Scorecard is a management system that maps an organization's strategic objectives into performance metrics in four perspectives: financial, internal processes, customers, and learning and growth. These perspectives provide relevant feedback as to how well the strategic plan is executing so that adjustments can be made as necessary. The Balance Scorecard framework can be depicted as follows:

**The Balanced Scorecard Framework**
	Financial Performance Objectives Measures Targets Initiatives

Customers Objectives Measures Targets Initiatives	Strategy	Internal Processes Objectives Measures Targets Initiatives

	Learning & Growth Objectives Measures Targets Initiatives

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) was published in 1992 by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. In addition to measuring current performance in financial terms, the Balanced Scorecard evaluates the firm's efforts for future improvement using process, customer, and learning and growth metrics. The term "scorecard" signifies quantified performance measures and "balanced" signifies that the system is balanced between:

short-term objectives and long-term objectives
financial measures and non-financial measures
lagging indicators and leading indicators
internal performance and external performance perspectives

Financial Measures Are Insufficient

While financial accounting is suited to the tracking of physical assets such as manufacturing equipment and inventory, it is less capable of providing useful reports in environments with a large intangible asset base. As intangible assets constitute an ever-increasing proportion of a company's market value, there is an increase in the need for measures that better report such assets as loyal customers, proprietary processes, and highly-skilled staff.

Consider the case of a company that is not profitable but that has a very large customer base. Such a firm could be an attractive takeover target simply because the acquiring firm wants access to those customers. It is not uncommon for a company to take over a competitor with the plan to discontinue the competing product line and convert the customer base to its own products and services. The balance sheets of such takeover targets do not reflect the value of the customers who nonetheless are worth something to the acquiring firm. Clearly, additional measures are needed for such intangibles.

Scorecard Measures are Limited in Number

The Balanced Scorecard is more than a collection of measures used to identify problems. It is a system that integrates a firm's strategy with a purposely limited number of key metrics. Simply adding new metrics to the financial ones could result in hundreds of measures and would create information overload.

To avoid this problem, the Balanced Scorecard focuses on four major areas of performance and a limited number of metrics within those areas. The objectives within the four perspectives are carefully selected and are firm specific. To avoid information overload, the total number of measures should be limited to somewhere between 15 and 20, or three to four measures for each of the four perspectives. These measures are selected as the ones deemed to be critical in achieving breakthrough competitive performance; they essentially define what is meant by "performance".

A Chain of Cause-and-Effect Relationships

Before the Balanced Scorecard, some companies already used a collection of both financial and non-financial measures of critical performance indicators. However, a well-designed Balanced Scorecard is different from such a system in that the four BSC perspectives form a chain of cause-and-effect relationships. For example, learning and growth lead to better business processes that result in higher customer loyalty and thus a higher return on capital employed (ROCE).

Effectively, the cause-and-effect relationships illustrate the hypothesis behind the organization's strategy. The measures reflect a chain of performance drivers that determine the effectiveness of the strategy implementation.

Objectives, Measures, Targets, and Initiatives

Within each of the Balanced Scorecard financial, customer, internal process, and learning perspectives, the firm must define the following:

Strategic objectives - what the strategy is to achieve in that perspective.
Measures - how progress for that particular objective will be measured.
Targets - the target value sought for each measure.
Initiatives - what will be done to facilitate the reaching of the target.

The following sections provide examples of some objectives and measures for the four perspectives.

Financial Perspective

The financial perspective addresses the question of how shareholders view the firm and which financial goals are desired from the shareholder's perspective. The specific goals depend on the company's stage in the business life cycle.

For example:

Growth stage - goal is growth, such as revenue growth rate
Sustain stage - goal is profitability, such ROE, ROCE, and EVA
Harvest stage - goal is cash flow and reduction in capital requirements

The following table outlines some examples of financial metrics:

Objective	Specific Measure
Growth	Revenue growth
Profitability	Return on equity
Cost leadership	Unit cost

Customer Perspective

The customer perspective addresses the question of how the firm is viewed by its customers and how well the firm is serving its targeted customers in order to meet the financial objectives. Generally, customers view the firm in terms of time, quality, performance, and cost. Most customer objectives fall into one of those four categories. The following table outlines some examples of specific customer objectives and measures:

Objective	Specific Measure
New products	% of sales from new products
Responsive supply	Ontime delivery
To be preferred supplier	Share of key accounts
Customer partnerships	Number of cooperative efforts

Internal Process Perspective

Internal business process objectives address the question of which processes are most critical for satisfying customers and shareholders. These are the processes in which the firm must concentrate its efforts to excel. The following table outlines some examples of process objectives and measures:

Objective	Specific Measure
Manufacturing excellence	Cycle time, yield
Increase design productivity	Engineering efficiency
Reduce product launch delays	Actual launch date vs. plan

Learning and Growth Perspective

Learning and growth metrics address the question of how the firm must learn, improve, and innovate in order to meet its objectives. Much of this perspective is employee-centered. The following table outlines some examples of learning and growth measures:

Objective	Specific Measure
Manufacturing learning	Time to new process maturity
Product focus	% of products representing 80% of sales
Time to market	Time compared to that of competitors

Achieving Strategic Alignment throughout the Organization

Whereas strategy is articulated in terms meaningful to top management, to be implemented it must be translated into objectives and measures that are actionable at lower levels in the organization. The Balanced Scorecard can be cascaded to make the translation of strategy possible.

While top level objectives may be expressed in terms of growth and profitability, these goals get translated into more concrete terms as they progress down the organization and each manager at the next lower level develops objectives and measures that support the next higher level. For example, increased profitability might get translated into lower unit cost, which then gets translated into better calibration of the equipment by the workers on the shop floor. Ultimately, achievement of scorecard objectives would be rewarded by the employee compensation system. The Balanced Scorecard can be cascaded in this manner to align the strategy thoughout the organization.

The Process of Building a Balanced Scorecard

While there are many ways to develop a Balanced Scorecard, Kaplan and Norton defined a four-step process that has been used across a wide range of organizationsL:

Define the measurement architecture - When a company initially introduces the Balanced Scorecard, it is more manageable to apply it on the strategic business unit level rather than the corporate level. However, interactions must be considered in order to avoid optimizing the results of one business unit at the expense of others.
Specify strategic objectives - The top three or four objectives for each perspective are agreed upon. Potential measures are identified for each objective.
Choose strategic measures - Measures that are closely related to the actual performance drivers are selected for evaluating the progress made toward achieving the objectives.
Develop the implementation plan - Target values are assigned to the measures. An information system is developed to link the top level metrics to lower-level operational measures. The scorecard is integrated into the management system.

Balanced Scorecard Benefits

Some of the benefits of the Balanced Scorecard system include:

Translation of strategy into measurable parameters.
Communication of the strategy to everybody in the firm.
Alignment of individual goals with the firm's strategic objectives - the BSC recognizes that the selected measures influence the behavior of employees.
Feedback of implementation results to the strategic planning process.

Since its beginnings as a peformance measurement system, the Balanced Scorecard has evolved into a strategy implementation system that not only measures performance but also describes, communicates, and aligns the strategy throughout the organization.

Potential Pitfalls

The following are potential pitfalls that should be avoided when implementing the Balanced Scorecard:

Lack of a well-defined strategy: The Balanced Scorecard relies on a well-defined strategy and an understanding of the linkages between strategic objectives and the metrics. Without this foundation, the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard is unlikely to be successful.
Using only lagging measures: Many managers believe that they will reap the benefits of the Balanced Scorecard by using a wide range of non-financial measures. However, care should be taken to identify not only lagging measures that describe past performance, but also leading measures that can be used to plan for future performance.
Use of generic metrics: It usually is not sufficient simply to adopt the metrics used by other successful firms. Each firm should put forth the effort to identify the measures that are appropriate for its own strategy and competitive position.

Chart of Accounts

The chart of accounts is a listing of all the accounts in the general ledger, each account accompanied by a reference number. To set up a chart of accounts, one first needs to define the various accounts to be used by the business. Each account should have a number to identify it. For very small businesses, three digits may suffice for the account number, though more digits are highly desirable in order to allow for new accounts to be added as the business grows. With more digits, new accounts can be added while maintaining the logical order. Complex businesses may have thousands of accounts and require longer account reference numbers. It is worthwhile to put thought into assigning the account numbers in a logical way, and to follow any specific industry standards. An example of how the digits might be coded is shown in this list:

Account Numbering

1000 - 1999: asset accounts
2000 - 2999: liability accounts
3000 - 3999: equity accounts
4000 - 4999: revenue accounts
5000 - 5999: cost of goods sold
6000 - 6999: expense accounts
7000 - 7999: other revenue (for example, interest income)
8000 - 8999: other expense (for example, income taxes)

By separating each account by several numbers, many new accounts can be added between any two while maintaining the logical order.

Defining Accounts

Different types of businesses will have different accounts. For example, to report the cost of goods sold a manufacturing business will have accounts for its various manufacturing costs whereas a retailer will have accounts for the purchase of its stock merchandise. Many industry associations publish recommended charts of accounts for their respective industries in order to establish a consistent standard of comparison among firms in their industry. Accounting software packages often come with a selection of predefined account charts for various types of businesses.

There is a trade-off between simplicity and the ability to make historical comparisons. Initially keeping the number of accounts to a minimum has the advantage of making the accounting system simple. Starting with a small number of accounts, as certain accounts acquired significant balances they would be split into smaller, more specific accounts. However, following this strategy makes it more difficult to generate consistent historical comparisons. For example, if the accounting system is set up with a miscellaneous expense account that later is broken into more detailed accounts, it then would be difficult to compare those detailed expenses with past expenses of the same type. In this respect, there is an advantage in organizing the chart of accounts with a higher initial level of detail.

Some accounts must be included due to tax reporting requirements. For example, in the U.S. the IRS requires that travel, entertainment, advertising, and several other expenses be tracked in individual accounts. One should check the appropriate tax regulations and generate a complete list of such required accounts.

Other accounts should be set up according to vendor. If the business has more than one checking account, for example, the chart of accounts might include an account for each of them.

Account Order

Balance sheet accounts tend to follow a standard that lists the most liquid assets first. Revenue and expense accounts tend to follow the standard of first listing the items most closely related to the operations of the business. For example, sales would be listed before non-operating income. In some cases, part or all of the expense accounts simply are listed in alphabetical order.

Sample Chart of Accounts

The following is an example of some of the accounts that might be included in a chart of accounts.

Sample Chart of Accounts

Asset Accounts

Current Assets

1000	Petty Cash
1010	Cash on Hand (e.g. in cash registers)
1020	Regular Checking Account
1030	Payroll Checking Account
1040	Savings Account
1050	Special Account
1060	Investments - Money Market
1070	Investments - Certificates of Deposit
1100	Accounts Receivable
1140	Other Receivables
1150	Allowance for Doubtful Accounts
1200	Raw Materials Inventory
1205	Supplies Inventory
1210	Work in Progress Inventory
1215	Finished Goods Inventory - Product #1
1220	Finished Goods Inventory - Product #2
1230	Finished Goods Inventory - Product #3
1400	Prepaid Expenses
1410	Employee Advances
1420	Notes Receivable - Current
1430	Prepaid Interest
1470	Other Current Assets

Fixed Assets

1500	Furniture and Fixtures
1510	Equipment
1520	Vehicles
1530	Other Depreciable Property
1540	Leasehold Improvements
1550	Buildings
1560	Building Improvements
1690	Land
1700	Accumulated Depreciation, Furniture and Fixtures
1710	Accumulated Depreciation, Equipment
1720	Accumulated Depreciation, Vehicles
1730	Accumulated Depreciation, Other
1740	Accumulated Depreciation, Leasehold
1750	Accumulated Depreciation, Buildings
1760	Accumulated Depreciation, Building Improvements

Other Assets

1900	Deposits
1910	Organization Costs
1915	Accumulated Amortization, Organization Costs
1920	Notes Receivable, Non-current
1990	Other Non-current Assets

Liability Accounts

Current Liabilities

2000	Accounts Payable
2300	Accrued Expenses
2310	Sales Tax Payable
2320	Wages Payable
2330	401-K Deductions Payable
2335	Health Insurance Payable
2340	Federal Payroll Taxes Payable
2350	FUTA Tax Payable
2360	State Payroll Taxes Payable
2370	SUTA Payable
2380	Local Payroll Taxes Payable
2390	Income Taxes Payable
2400	Other Taxes Payable
2410	Employee Benefits Payable
2420	Current Portion of Long-term Debt
2440	Deposits from Customers
2480	Other Current Liabilities

Long-term Liabilities

2700	Notes Payable
2702	Land Payable
2704	Equipment Payable
2706	Vehicles Payable
2708	Bank Loans Payable
2710	Deferred Revenue
2740	Other Long-term Liabilities

Equity Accounts

3010	Stated Capital
3020	Capital Surplus
3030	Retained Earnings

Revenue Accounts

4000	Product #1 Sales
4020	Product #2 Sales
4040	Product #3 Sales
4060	Interest Income
4080	Other Income
4540	Finance Charge Income
4550	Shipping Charges Reimbursed
4800	Sales Returns and Allowances
4900	Sales Discounts

Cost of Goods Sold

5000	Product #1 Cost
5010	Product #2 Cost
5020	Product #3 Cost
5050	Raw Material Purchases
5100	Direct Labor Costs
5150	Indirect Labor Costs
5200	Heat and Power
5250	Commissions
5300	Miscellaneous Factory Costs
5700	Cost of Goods Sold, Salaries and Wages
5730	Cost of Goods Sold, Contract Labor
5750	Cost of Goods Sold, Freight
5800	Cost of Goods Sold, Other
5850	Inventory Adjustments
5900	Purchase Returns and Allowances
5950	Purchase Discounts

Expenses

6000	Default Purchase Expense
6010	Advertising Expense
6050	Amortization Expense
6100	Auto Expenses
6150	Bad Debt Expense
6200	Bank Fees
6250	Cash Over and Short
6300	Charitable Contributions Expense
6350	Commissions and Fees Expense
6400	Depreciation Expense
6450	Dues and Subscriptions Expense
6500	Employee Benefit Expense, Health Insurance
6510	Employee Benefit Expense, Pension Plans
6520	Employee Benefit Expense, Profit Sharing Plan
6530	Employee Benefit Expense, Other
6550	Freight Expense
6600	Gifts Expense
6650	Income Tax Expense, Federal
6660	Income Tax Expense, State
6670	Income Tax Expense, Local
6700	Insurance Expense, Product Liability
6710	Insurance Expense, Vehicle
6750	Interest Expense
6800	Laundry and Dry Cleaning Expense
6850	Legal and Professional Expense
6900	Licenses Expense
6950	Loss on NSF Checks
7000	Maintenance Expense
7050	Meals and Entertainment Expense
7100	Office Expense
7200	Payroll Tax Expense
7250	Penalties and Fines Expense
7300	Other Taxes
7350	Postage Expense
7400	Rent or Lease Expense
7450	Repair and Maintenance Expense, Office
7460	Repair and Maintenance Expense, Vehicle
7550	Supplies Expense, Office
7600	Telephone Expense
7620	Training Expense
7650	Travel Expense
7700	Salaries Expense, Officers
7750	Wages Expense
7800	Utilities Expense
8900	Other Expense
9000	Gain/Loss on Sale of Assets

The Accounting Process

Saturday, 4 June 2011

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