What is Accounting Worksheet?
Accounting Worksheet is a spreadsheet tool that records all accounting information and is used to prepare financial statements of the company at the end of the accounting cycle thereby ensuring its financial accuracy.
- These accounting spreadsheets are designed mainly for internal purposes only where the external users of the company like investors, creditors, etc rarely get the chance to see the accounting worksheet of the company.
- Due to this, there is flexibility with the preparer of the accounting worksheet to modify its format to fit the demand of their internal and workflow requirements. So, this is the spreadsheet which helps in tracking each step of the accounting cycle of the company.
Components of Accounting Worksheet
There are five columns of the data generally and each column of data lists the debit entries and the credit entries separately. The following are the five columns of the data in the accounting worksheet:
#1 – Unadjusted Trial Balance
The Unadjusted trial balance column contains all the company’s asset, liability, expenses, and revenue accounts which are used in a concerned year. The total of credit and the debit column of the unadjusted trial balance are equal.
#2 – Adjustments
All the accounts of the company which requires the passing of the adjustment entry will get listed in the adjustment column. The total of credit and the debit column of the balance of the adjustments are equal.
#3 – Adjusted Trial Balance
The adjusted trial balance will be prepared by combining the entries of the previous two columns, Unadjusted trial balance, and adjustments. The total credit and the debit column of the adjusted trial balance are equal.
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#4 – Income Statement
Income statement column contains the values with respect to the expenses and revenue accounts only. In this case, if the value of total revenue exceeds the expense column, then the difference will be the net income of the year of the company as it is earning more revenues in the year than what it is spending on its expenses.
On the other hand, if the expenses total for the year exceeds the revenue total, then the difference will be the net loss of the year of the company as it is spending more on its expenses than what it is earning. In either of the cases balancing entry is required to be passed by the company for the difference.
#5 – Balance Sheet
Balance sheet column contains the values with respect to the assets, liabilities, and owner’s capital only. The total credit and the debit column of the Balance sheet will be equal.
Example of Accounting Worksheet
Company XYZ Ltd. runs a bakery business. During the year before preparing the final statements of accounts, it decided to prepare an accounting spreadsheet as an intermediate step. The unadjusted trial balance of the company is given in column 1. During the year two adjustments were done which includes payment of rent of $1,500 in advance and the depreciation expense of $2,000. Prepare accounting worksheet.
Solution:
Advantages of Accounting Worksheet
- With the help of the accounting spreadsheet, it becomes easy to complete the process of preparation of financial statements of the firm step-by-step. It is one of the essential tools for the preparation of the income statement and the balance sheet of the company. While the use of the same is not compulsory, it is a very useful step.
- It ensures that the bookkeeper of the company does not forget while preparing the books to pass the adjustments required.
- It provides information about the financial health of the company before the actual financial statement of the company is prepared.
Limitations
They are prepared manually and separately from the company’s accounting database, so there are chances that the accounting worksheets prepared may contain the errors or the inaccuracies in the formula. It is necessary for the concerned person to carefully review them before relying on summary totals.
Conclusion
An accounting spreadsheet of the company is a document which is used within the accounting department for calculating and analyzing the account balances. A worksheet is a useful tool in order to ensure that the accounting entries are correct. All the accounts of the accounting records of the company are shown in the accounting worksheet in at-least one of the columns which is an essential step for preventing the errors when the company’s final financial statements are prepared.
So, it shows all of the major steps of the accounting cycle of the company side by side. While the use of the same is not compulsory, it is one of the essential tools for the preparation of the income statement and the balance sheet of the company.
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