4 4 Adjusting for Deferred Items Principles of Accounting I

insurance expense adjusting entry

The adjusting entry ensures that the amount of rent expired appears as a business expense on the income statement, not as an asset on the balance sheet. The adjusting entry ensures that the amount of insurance expired appears as a business expense on the income statement, not as an asset on the balance sheet. You prepaid a one-year insurance policy during the month and initially recorded it as an asset because it would last for more than one month. By the end of the month some of the insurance expired, so you reduced the value of this asset to reflect what you actually had on hand at the end of the month ($1,100). To transfer what expired, Insurance Expense was debited for the amount used and Prepaid Insurance was credited to reduce the asset by the same amount. Any remaining balance in the Prepaid Insurance account is what you have left to use in the future; it continues to be an asset since it is still available.

If so, these types of purchases require special attention in your books. Although fixed assets cost a company money, they are not initially recorded as expenses. (Notice in the journal entry above prepaid insurance journal entry that the debit account is “Equipment,” NOT “Equipment Expense”). Fixed assets are first recorded as assets that later are gradually “expensed off,” or claimed as a business expense, over time.

Adjusting Entry for Prepaid Insurance

Here is an example of the Prepaid Rent account balance at the end of October. The same adjusting entry above will be made at the end of the month for 12 months to bring the Prepaid Insurance amount down by $100 each month. Here is an example of the Prepaid Insurance account balance at the end of October. After 12 full months, at the end of May in the year after the insurance was initially purchased, all of the prepaid insurance will have expired. If the company would still like to be covered by insurance, it will have to purchase more. Maximize working capital with the only unified platform for collecting cash, providing credit, and understanding cash flow.

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  • Initially, the concept of crediting Accumulated Depreciation may be confusing because of how we learned to adjust prepaids (debit an expense and credit the prepaid).
  • The template also contains an auto-populated roll forward schedule.
  • This adjusting entry transfers $1000 from the Prepaid Expenses asset account to the Insurance Expense expense account to properly record the insurance expense for the month of September.
  • The initial journal entry for a prepaid expense does not affect a company’s financial statements.
  • The adjusting entry ensures that the amount of taxes expired appears as a business expense on the income statement, not as an asset on the balance sheet.

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After you prepare your initial trial balance, you can prepare and post your adjusting entries, later running an adjusted trial balance after the journal entries have been posted to your general ledger. The purpose of adjusting entries is to ensure that your financial statements will reflect accurate data. A contra account is an account that is related to another account and typically has an opposite normal balance that is subtracted from the balance of its related account on the financial statements. Accumulated depreciation records the amount of the asset’s cost that has been expensed since it was put into use.

Create a prepaid expenses journal entry in your books at the time of purchase, before using the good or service. Instead, they provide value over time—generally over multiple accounting periods. Because the expense expires as you use it, you can’t expense the entire value of the item immediately. Record a prepaid expense in your business financial records and adjust entries as you use the item. The adjusting entry ensures that the amount of supplies used appears as a business expense on the income statement, not as an asset on the balance sheet.

Adjusting journal entries for prepaid insurance

A company receiving the cash for benefits yet to be delivered will have to record the amount in an unearned revenue liability account. Then, an adjusting entry to recognize the revenue is used as necessary. The cost incurred to purchase an insurance policy by a business is referred to as insurance expense.

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