THANKZZZZ......Zzz...ZzZ ladies so much ya i have a small doubt that in provision for doubtful debts if we had been given last year provision which for example was 200 and this year 150 i memorized the enteries in the provision accöunt but never understood them the enterie r deßit balance c/d 150 and credit ßalance b/d 200 so do i have to memorize it or there is a point behind dat
Ok, provision for doubtful debts is simply recording the probable non-payments by the debtors. Now, using your example, the question would probably mention that On 1st May 2009(for example) a trader had a provison for doubtful debts amounting to $200 (meaning that the 200 is the last year's b/d balance.
provison for doubtful debts is a credit balance. I'll tell you the reason in a moment.
So, first write down the balance $200 in the credit side. Then the question mentions that the provison for doubtful debts was reduced to $150 (this means that at te end of the year, the provision for doubtful debts will have a credit balance of $200) Now, its a credit balance because its going out of the account and being debited (subtracted from gross profit) in the trading account. Now, you know that the balance at start is $200 credit and the balance at the end is $150, what amount needs to be debited to lower the credit balance to 150?
(200-150=50), so, you would debit the provison for doubtful debts with $50 after entering the opening balance of $200, to get the bredit balance of $150.
Now, in this case, if u see, the prov for doubtful debts has decreased. Which, means this would be an income in the trading account; the decrease of $50 would be added(credited) to the gross profit. The
decrease is an
income because the business would be transfering some of the provision
back into the firm's revenueI hope this helped. Any confusions regarding this, please feel free to ask.