Accounting and Finance Questions

An accounts receivable aging is a report that lists unpaid customer invoices and unused credit memos by date ranges. A typical aging report lists invoices in 30-day "buckets," where the left-most column contains all invoices that are 30 days old or less, the next column contains invoices that are 31-60 days old, the next column contains invoices that are 61-90 days old, and the final column contains all older invoices. The report is sorted by customer name, with all invoices for each customer itemized directly below the customer name, usually sorted by either invoice number or invoice date. A sample report follows, though without the individual invoice detail that is usually found in such a report:

Customer Name 

Total A/R 0-30

Days 31-60

Days 61-90

Days 90+

Days

Abercrombie $15,000 $10,000 $5,000 

Bufford Inc. 29,000 20,000 9,000 

Chesterton Co. 83,000 47,000 21,000 12,000 3,000

Denver Brothers 8,000 8,000

Totals $135,000 $57,000 $46,000 $21,000 $11,000

If the report is generated by an accounting software system (which is usually the case), then you can usually reconfigure the report for different date ranges. For example, if your payment terms are net 15 days, then the date range in the left-most column should only be for the first 15 days. This drops 16-day old invoices into the second column, which highlights that they are now overdue for payment.

The report primarily contains invoices, but it may also contain credit memos that have not been used by customers, or which have not yet been matched against an unpaid invoice.

The aging report is the primary tool used by collections personnel to determine which invoices are overdue for payment, and which therefore require them to contact customers. Given its use as a collection tool, the report may be configured to also contain contact information for each customer.

The aging report is also used as a tool for estimating potential bad debts, which are then used to revise the allowance for doubtful accounts. The usual method for doing so is to derive the historical percentage of invoice dollar amounts in each date range that usually become a bad debt, and apply these percentages to the column totals in the most recent aging report.

An additional use of the aging report is by the credit department, which can view the current payment status of any outstanding invoices to see if customer credit limits should be changed. This is not an ideal use of the report, since the credit department should also review invoices that have already been paid in the recent past. Nonetheless, the report does give a good indication of the near-term financial situation of customers.

‘Endorsing cheque’ ensures that the cheque get deposited into your account only. It minimizes the risk of theft. Normally, in endorsing cheque, the cashier will ask you to sign at the back of the cheque. The signature should match the payee. The image over here shows the endorsed cheque.

Value is the monetary worth of something, in this case, it is an item.

In option A, since it is talking about capital which is measured in monetary terms.

The value of an item is determined by its quality and its age. Often antiques with good quality are sold in the market with a high value and are sometimes auctioned.

Foreign draft is an alternative to foreign currency; it is generally used to send money to a foreign country. It can be purchased from the commercial banks, and they will charge according to their banks rules and norms. People opt for ‘foreign draft’ for sending money as this method of sending money is cheaper and safer. It also enables receiver to access the funds quicker than a cheque or cash transfer.

In accounting, the Three-way Match refers to a procedure used when processing an invoice received from a vendor or supplier. The three-way match is an important step in safeguarding an organization's assets. The purpose of the three-way match is to avoid paying incorrect and perhaps fraudulent invoices.

Here Three-way refers to the three documents involved :

* Vendor's invoice which was received and will become part of an organization's accounts        payable if approved.

* Purchase order that was prepared by the organization.

* Receiving report that was prepared by the organization.

And Match refers to the comparison of the quantities, price per unit, terms, etc. appearing on the vendor's invoice to the information on the purchase order and to the quantities actually received.

After the vendor's invoice has been validated by the three-way match, it can be further processed for payment.

The financial statements should be prepared in the following order:

Income statement - Statement of retained earnings - Balance sheet

1. Income statement reports revenues and expenses and calculates net income or net loss for the time period.

2. Statement of retained earnings show how retained earnings changed during the period due to net income or net loss and dividends.

3. Balance sheet reports assets, liabilities, and stockholders’ equity as of the last day of the period.

Means whatever income any employee received from the organisation and on that tax to be deducted. (e.g. Gross salary, Overtime, Bonus, Incentives etc.)