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Accountant
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Come in.
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Business Owner
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Thank you for seeing me today. First Bank recommended that I see an accountant, but I’m not sure exactly why. I’m just trying to set up a line of credit so that I can stock up on inventory before the Christmas buying season. The bank is asking for an income statement and balance sheet on my business.
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Accountant
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I’m sure I can help you. That’s a very standard request. Let me see the information you have.
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Business Owner
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This is the print out from my accounting software. I’m very careful to enter every transaction, so I don’t see why this list isn’t good enough.
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Accountant
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That’s a great start. Let’s see if I understand what you have here. (Pause) You seem to have a very high accounts receivable.
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Business Owner
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Yes. That’s one of the strongest points of the business to show the bank. We have just received a $20,000 order, so I entered it right away as sales and accounts receivable. I want to keep track of every transaction.
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Accountant
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Have you delivered anything on the order yet?
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Business Owner
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No. We’re on track to finish by the 15th and then inspect and ship by the end of the month.
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Accountant
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That’s actually something that will need to be adjusted. Did you decrease your inventory yet for this order?
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Business Owner
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No. It hasn’t been shipped yet, so I wouldn’t change inventory. Isn’t that right?
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Accountant
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Yes, that’s good that your inventory here matches your inventory at your business today. Now I noticed something else about the assets you have listed. You have a building listed, but no land. That’s very unusual. Do you own your own building?
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Business Owner
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Yes, we’ve just closed on our headquarters. Of course, we own the land too. The $250,000 I recorded for the building is for both.
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Accountant
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That’s what I thought. We’ll have to separate out the value for the building and land because they are separate assets and have different accounting treatment.
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Business Owner
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But I didn’t pay a separate price for the land and building. How would I know the separate values?
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Accountant
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Most appraisers apply 20% of the total price to the land and 80% to the building in these cases, so we can follow that rule of thumb safely for a new standard purchase.
I notice that your income statement is missing two expenses that I would normally expect. There is no depreciation listed.
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Business Owner
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What’s that?
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Accountant
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Depreciation is an expense because all equipment and facilities have a limited life. As they are used, there is wear and tear and their productivity goes down. Now, since you have just purchased the building, it wouldn’t have any depreciation yet. But I wonder about the equipment. When did you purchase the equipment?
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Business Owner
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At the beginning of the year.
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Accountant
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And how long do you expect before you replace the equipment?
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Business Owner
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About five years.
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Accountant
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So we’ll decrease your income a little each year to allocate the cost of the equipment over the five years you will be using the equipment. That’s depreciation expense.
Now the second item that I would expect to see is tax expense.
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Business Owner
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I haven’t had to pay taxes yet.
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Accountant
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Even though you haven’t paid any taxes, taxes are due whenever you have a profitable business. So even though you won’t be paying current year taxes until March, you still need to record the amount that you currently owe based on the amount of profit you have had so far.
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Business Owner
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But won’t that confuse the tax office to get my payments ahead of time?
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Accountant
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You won’t be actually paying the taxes early. You’ll be recording the tax amount each period, so that when the year is over the taxes associated with that year will be on your books already. Then when the taxes are due, you’ll be paying off that obligation you have already recorded. If you wait to record tax expense on your books, you’ll have taxes associated with last year’s income on your books for this year.
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Business Owner
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So how do I record taxes if they aren’t even due yet?
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Accountant
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Let’s estimate taxes as your pretax income multiplied by 15%. You should be getting enough credits and deductions to keep you in a low marginal tax rate level.
I think
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Business Owner
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That’s a lot of changes.
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Accountant
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I can have my staff make these adjustments to your accounting records and create the income statement and balance sheet that your bank wants from you. Here are the adjustments we’ve identified:
· Adjust sales and accounts receivable for unfilled orders
· Adjust the value of the building and add the land to the records
· Add depreciation on the equipment
· Add taxes owed on your pretax income
Can you stop back tomorrow morning to pick up the financial statements?
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Business Owner
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Thank you so much.
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