Question

On December 31, 2017, Extreme Fitness has adjusted balances of $870,000 in Accounts Receivable and $69,000 in Allowance for Doubtful Accounts. On January 2, 2018, the company learns that certain customer accounts are not collectible, so management authorizes a write-off of these accounts totaling $17,000. What amount would the company report as its net accounts receivable on December 31, 2017

Answer 1

Answer: The amount the company would report as its net accounts receivable at 31 December 2017 is $801,000.

Explanation: Net accounts receivable is the recoverable amount of receivable after considering the amount that is deemed to be uncollectible. It is accounts receivable balance minus the allowance for doubtful accounts.

In the instance of this question, the net accounts receivable was initially $801,000 ($870,000 - $69,000). Now that management approved a write-off of $17,000, the implication is that the write-off would hit allowance for doubtful account (since there is a buffer in that account instead of bad debt expense), and the necessary accounting entries to be recorded would be: Debit Allowance for doubtful accounts $17,000; Credit Accounts Receivable $17,000. With these entries, both accounts receivable and the allowance for doubtful accounts would be reduced by the same account. Consequently, the net accounts receivable remains the same but the individual balances in accounts receivable and allowance for doubtful account would now be $853,000 ($870,000 - $17,000) and $52,000 ($69,000 - $17,000).