Question

An aging of a company's accounts receivable indicates that $3,000 are estimated to be uncollectible. If Allowance for Doubtful Accounts has a $1,200 credit balance, the adjustment to record bad debts for the period will require a
a. credit to Allowance for Doubtful Accounts for $4,000.
b. debit to Bad Debts Expense for $1,800.
c. debit to Bad Debts Expense for $3,000.
d. debit to Bad Debt Expense for $4,200.

Answer 1

Answer: The correct answer is b. debit to Bad Debts Expense for $1,800.

Explanation: The company adopts the aging bad debt method on receivable. The aging method is a way of classifying receivables as uncollectible based on the length of time the receivables have been outstanding and the probability of recoverability of such receivables.

To make a provision for bad debt expense: debit is passed to bad debt expense while credit is passed to allowance for doubtful accounts. The bad debt expense reports to the income statement while allowance for doubtful accounts reports to the balance sheet (statement of financial position). Based on the question, the allowance for doubtful accounts has a credit balance of $1,200; however, $3,000 was estimated to be uncollectible. In order to restate the amount to $3,000, we need to debit bad debt expense and credit allowance for doubtful accounts with $1,800 ($3,000 - $1,200).