1.4 Review – The Worksheet

Often companies prepare a worksheet to summarize the financial statements. The worksheet is an “at-a-glance” snapshot of the general ledger as well as adjusting entries. The worksheet must always be in balance.  It can be used as a check point before completing the financial statements.  Once the worksheet is in balance, it is then used to create financial statements. A worksheet is very helpful for documenting account details and to make notes when preparing financial statements.

The worksheet does not replace the financial statements. Instead, the worksheet is an internal, informal, information tool for accumulating and sorting the information that is needed for the financial statements. Completing the worksheet makes it more certain that all of the details of the end-of-period accounting and statement preparation have been properly brought together. An example of a worksheet:

Unadjusted Trial Balance
Adjustments
Adjusted Trial Balance
Income Statement
Balance Sheet
Account Name
Dr.
Cr.
Dr.
Cr.
Dr.
Cr.
Dr.
Cr.
Dr.
Cr.
Cash 50,000 50,000 50,000
Accounts Receivables 120,000 120,000 120,000
Prepaid Rent 10,000 6,000 4,000 4,000
Inventory 32,000 32,000 32,000
Land 500,000 500,000 500,000
Building 400,000 400,000 400,000
Building – Accumulated Depreciation 60,000 10,000 70,000 70,000
Equipment 100,000 100,000 100,000
Equipment – Accumulated Depreciation 25,000 20,000 45,000 45,000
Accounts Payable 32,000 32,000 32,000
Sales Tax Payable 1,500 1,500 1,500
Bank Loan 700,000 700,000 700,000
Common Shares 100,000 100,000 100,000
Retained Earnings 215,500 215,500 215,500
Revenue 425,000 425,000 425,000
Advertising Expense 15,000 15,000 15,000
Depreciation Expense 30,000 30,000 30,000
Rent Expense 10,000 6,000 16,000 16,000
Utility Expense 22,000 22,000 22,000
Wages Expense 300,000 300,000 300,000
1,559,000


1,559,000


36,000


36,000


1,589,000


 


383,000 425,000 1,206,000 1,164,000
42,000 42,000
425,000


425,000


1,206,000


1,206,000


Notes:

  • The Unadjusted Trial Balance is created after the day-to-day transactions are completed and posted.
  • Adjustments are recorded after the unadjusted trial balance is completed, near the end of the accounting cycle.
  • The Adjusted Trial Balance is used to create the financial statements (the Income Statement and Balance Sheet).

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Intermediate Financial Accounting 1 Copyright © 2022 by Michael Van Roestel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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