Time issues
We would need no adjustments if we could wait to prepare financial statements until a company ended its operations. At that point, we could easily determine its final balance sheet and the amount of lifetime income it earned. However, all companies find it desirable to report the results of their activities on a frequent basis. For example, management usually wants monthly financial statements, and the Internal Revenue Service requires all businesses to file annual tax returns. Therefore, accountants divide the economic life of a business into artificial time periods. This convenient assumption is referred to as the time period assumption.
Many business transactions affect more than one of these arbitrary time periods. For example, the airplanes purchased by Southwest Airlines five years ago are still in use today. We must determine the relevance of each business transaction to specific accounting periods. (How much of the cost of an airplane contributed to operations this year?)
Fiscal and Calendar Years
Both small and large companies prepare financial statements periodically in order to assess their financial condition and results of operations. Accounting time periods are generally a month, a quarter, or a year. Monthly and quarterly time periods are called interim periods. Most large companies must prepare both quarterly and annual financial statements. An accounting time period that is one year in length is a fiscal year. A fiscal year usually begins with the first day of a month and ends twelve months later on the last day of a month. Most businesses use the calendar year (January 1 to December 31) as their accounting period. Some do not. Companies whose fiscal year differs from the calendar year include Delta Air Lines, June 30, and Walt Disney Productions, September 30. Sometimes a company’s year-end will vary from year to year. For example, PepsiCo’s fiscal year ends on the Friday closest to December 31, which was December 29 in 2007 and December 27 in 2008.
Accrual-basis accounting
Under the accrual basis, companies record transactions that change a company’s financial statements in the periods in which the events occur. For example, using the accrual basis to determine net income means companies recognize revenues when earned (rather than when they receive cash). It also means recognizing expenses when incurred (rather than when paid).
An alternative to the accrual basis is the cash basis. Under cash-basis accounting, companies record revenue when they receive cash. They record an expense when they pay out cash. The cash basis seems appealing due to its simplicity, but it often produces misleading financial statements. It fails to record revenue that a company has earned but for which it has not received the cash. Also, it does not match expenses with earned revenues. Cash-basis accounting is not in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
Individuals and some small companies do use cash-basis accounting. The cash basis is justified for small businesses because they often have few receivables and payables. Medium and large companies use accrual-basis accounting.
Recognizing Revenues and Expenses
It can be difficult to determine the amount of revenues and expenses to report in a given accounting period. Two principles help in this task: the revenue recognition principle and the expense recognition principle.
REVENUE RECOGNITION PRINCIPLE
The revenue recognition principle dictates that companies recognize revenue in the accounting period in which it is earned. In a service enterprise, revenue is considered to be earned at the time the service is performed. To illustrate, assume that Dave’s Dry Cleaning cleans clothing on June 30 but customers do not claim and pay for their clothes until the first week of July. Under the revenue recognition principle, Dave’s earns revenue in June when it performed the service, rather than in July when it received the cash. At June 30, Dave’s would report a receivable on its balance sheet and revenue in its income statement for the service performed.
EXPENSE RECOGNITION PRINCIPLE
Accountants follow a simple rule in recognizing expenses: “Let the expenses follow the revenues.” That is, expense recognition is tied to revenue recognition. In the dry cleaning example, this principle means that Dave’s should report the salary expense incurred in performing the June 30 cleaning service in the income statement for the same period in which it recognizes the service revenue. The critical issue in expense recognition is when the expense makes its contribution to revenue. This may or may not be the same period in which the expense is paid. If Dave’s does not pay the salary incurred on June 30 until July, it would report salaries payable on its June 30 balance sheet.
This practice of expense recognition is referred to as the expense recognition principle (often referred to as the matching principle). It dictates that efforts (expenses) be matched with accomplishments (revenues). Illustration summarizes the revenue and expense recognition principles.
