Every day we make various purchases and pay utility bills. Sometimes we visit exhibitions, restaurants and other entertainment venues. As a rule, in most cases we also get to work either by public transport or by our own car. That is, again, we pay for gasoline and the use of equipment. Without even knowing it, we are confronted every day, even at a basic level, with the basics of accounting. In this case, the main concepts with which a person deals are the terms “debit” and “credit”. Our compatriots are more or less familiar with the latter definition. But not everyone understands what debit is. Let's try to understand this term in more detail.
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History of origin
The phrase “accounting debit” is often used in the professional speech and activities of economists, businessmen, various financial organizations and financial institutions. In order to understand in more detail the nature of the origin and the purpose of using this definition, let us turn to history. In modern Russian, a huge number of borrowed words are used. One of these is the term “debit”. It came to us from the German language. Although the word has its origins in the Roman Empire. Its original form is the definition of Debitum (Latin), which translated means “debt”. Its shorter form – debet – specifies this concept and is translated as “he must”. It is noteworthy that in this word the prefix de stands out. Based on Latin grammar, this short part means reduction, reduction. The second half of the term is translated as “having” or “to have.” Combining the two components, you get what “debit” means: “reduction in available property.”
Conclusions (video)
In this article we examined the question of what debit, credit, balance are and the meaning of these terms. The ability to distinguish between these values will significantly reduce the risk of various difficulties associated with financial transactions. Such knowledge can be useful to ordinary citizens in order to protect themselves from unexpected expenses when using a bank card.
Debit and credit are standardized methodological accounting techniques. They reveal the possibilities of economic and other processes and their direction, and they also set boundaries for these possibilities [1].
There are two types of accounts: active and passive. Passive means attracted funds; active - placed funds of a company, enterprise or bank. For active accounts: debit - inflow, credit - outflow. For passive: credit - income, debit - expense.
Debit is the left side of the ledger account. For active and active-passive accounts: an increase in debit means an increase in the value of property or property rights of the organization. For passive accounts: an increase in debit means a decrease in the organization’s own funds (sources) [2]. Comes from Lat. debet, meaning "he owes". The Latin word for this term is debitum, meaning “debt.”
Credit is the right side of the accounting account. For active and active-passive accounts: an increase in credit means a decrease in the value of property or property rights of the organization. According to passive accounts: an increase in credit means an increase in the organization’s own funds (sources) [3]. Derived from lat. credit, which means "he believes."
Debit and credit are parts of an accounting entry. The source of funds is recorded as a credit, and the recipient as a debit.
Similar terms
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Let's make a comparison with the English language. It contains the word debt, which is almost identical to the term described. Translated into great and mighty, this concept means “debt”.
In addition, you can consider the question “what is debit” from a physical point of view. So, in French speech this word began to be used in the meaning of “expense”. A certain volume of a resource (oil, gas, water) that a source provides over a certain period of time is the flow rate. Please note that the physical concept is written differently: with “and”.
Financial definition
Currently, the term “debit” is used quite often, especially when carrying out economic settlement actions. The modern meaning of this word is fully reflected in the banking operations carried out. Under any conditions when it is necessary to transfer funds from the client’s account, a debit occurs, i.e., money is written off.
Let's look at an example. You have decided to pay the supplier for the delivered equipment. According to the terms of the agreement, payment can be made by bank check. The supplier goes to the bank and gives the security to a competent person. You receive a message that an amount of “N” rubles has been deposited to the debit of an account belonging to you. That is, the funds were blocked for further debiting.
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Balance: what is it in simple words
Our offices were nearby, so he brought a bag of money to me and asked me to leave it in the safe until the morning.
One day passes, then a second, a week passes. The big bag of his money in my small safe was really bothering me, so I took the bag and went to him myself. And she went straight to dismantling. Screams, swearing, faces covered in red spots.
It turned out that the money was missing. The reader has already guessed what... The package contained forty thousand dollars, at that time that was the cost of a one-room apartment in Moscow. What if I hadn't come?
This case seems comical, but it has a completely natural psychological explanation: the human brain holds 7 ± 2 things in RAM at the same time. Therefore, a person who worked with clients all day, receiving and giving money, cannot remember all 10 or 20 transactions that occurred during the day. And it is imperative to keep records, otherwise losses are inevitable.
Another young man worked hard and successfully, delivering goods to organizations that paid him in cash. When he was just starting his business, he did not consider it necessary to register his own legal entity. person, and agreed with my friend (my employer) to use our current account. When the money arrived, he called me, told me the amount, the sender and the payment number, and I said “there is money” or “there is no money.”
Very soon I discovered that he did not ask for part of the amounts. I saw that the money was his, because I already knew his buyers, but he did not ask for these amounts. He just didn’t remember all the shipments of goods that he shipped.
Any financier or accountant can tell any number of such stories. Perhaps some of the readers are nodding understandingly now because they themselves stepped on this rake.
To prevent this from happening, you need to count money correctly, following technology.
A few words about accounting and control technology.
Reconciliation
Reconciliation is the real cornerstone of all accounting technology .
The idea of reconciliation is very simple and intuitive. In everyday life, everyone, without knowing it, uses it without any special training:
Let's say in the morning you had 7,850 rubles in your wallet. During the day you received 24,600 rubles (receipt turnover) and gave 30,000 rubles (expense turnover). How much money should be in your wallet in the evening?
We get the basic formula:
Closing balance = Opening balance + Income - Expense.
If you know exactly how much it was in the morning, then from your notes you can easily calculate how much it should be in the evening. Check how much you actually have. If it doesn't match, look for the error. This is reconciliation.
The entire technology is based on this simple principle of reconciliation. Double entry is reconciliation taken to logical perfection. Strict paperwork requirements provide a basis for reconciliation .
Only reconciliation gives accounting reliability. Of course, computer programs calculate quickly and without errors, but if you enter incorrect data into such a program, the machine will quickly and without errors produce the wrong result. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly, literally every day, compare balances, find and correct errors. After all, you will always remember today’s operations, find and correct the error. It is more difficult to remember yesterday’s actions, and those of the day before yesterday are almost impossible. Therefore, it is very important to do the reconciliation every day .
Believe me, discrepancies are discovered during reconciliations very often.
So, accounting is carried out every day and is carried out in 3 stages :
- At the beginning of the working day, you reconcile the incoming balance: you count the cash, check it with the accounting balance. Both numbers must be equal.
- During the day, you record absolutely all transactions .
- At the end of the working day, you reconcile the outgoing balance: you count the cash, check it with the accounting balance. Both numbers must be equal. If there is a shortage at the cash register, the cashier covers it from his own pocket - this is his financial responsibility. If there is a surplus in the cash register, we come, it’s the company’s money.
The next day we do the same.
Carryover balance
Obviously, in the morning there should be the same amount of money as there was the night before. Indeed, many mistakes are made at this stage. Imagine, you have already done the reconciliation and closed the cash register, and then another client comes. You serve him and take money from him, but the mood is no longer quite working. As a result, it's easy to forget to make an entry. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the carryover residue and check whether it is beating.
Residues “wander” from one day to another and form a chain of passing residues.
Thus, any error entails incorrect balances in the accounts of all subsequent days. This allows you to verify the correctness of accounting records based on the last digit alone, and protects against falsification of accounting records in previous periods.
From lesson 2 you will learn how to organize document flow, how to distribute and control financial responsibility and how to arrange accounting in electronic form.
You can download the file with the accounting table template from the link in the letter for subscribers.
Debit turnover is the sum of transactions reflected on the debit side of an account without an opening balance, and credit turnover is the sum of transactions reflected on a credit account without an opening balance . The balance of active accounts at the end of the period is determined by the formula:
Sk=Sn+Od-Ok,
Where:
Sk – account balance (balance) at the end of the period;
Od – debit turnover for the period;
Ok – credit turnover for the period;
Сн – account balance at the beginning of the period.
The balance of passive accounts at the end of the period is determined by the formula:
Sk=Sn+Ok-Od
2.5 Fill out the control and balance sheet
The control sheet for January is presented in Table 2.
Table 2 – Control sheet for January
No. | Account number | Initial balance (Сн) | Revolutions | Final balance (Sk) | |
D | TO | D | TO | D | TO |
TOTAL |
This accounting register (Table 2) is filled out after all the information is reflected on the T-accounts for the reporting period, the calculation of debit and credit turnover and the determination of the balance at the end of the period, but before drawing up the balance sheet .
Accounting policies of organizations
What is debit as an accounting concept? Each organization, regardless of its form of ownership and purpose of its activities, is obliged to implement strictly regulated accounting policies.
As a rule, this type of activity involves working with two-sided tables - accounts. Each of them has its own number and name. However, the entire group of accounts is united under the general concept of “Balance Sheet”. The left side of the table represents the "debit". There are a huge number of accounts in accounting. However, depending on the type of organization, only certain of them are used.
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"Active" debit
Any account belongs to one of three groups of the “Balance Sheet”.
It can be active, passive or active-passive. In the first category, debit acts as a credit. For example, receipt of materials to a warehouse from a supplier. In the organization’s accounting, this entry (entry) will look like this: “Materials”
Debit (D-t) | Credit (Kt) |
Materials received |
In this case, the meaning of the concept of “debit” as “reducing what is available” refers to the opponent. That is, the availability of materials at the supplier has decreased. And the organization acts as its debtor. For balance, it is necessary to pay for the transfer of materials according to the conditions specified in the contract.
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What does it mean to “reconcile debits with credits”?
Reconciling debits with credits is necessary to obtain a balance. The balance sheet of an enterprise gives an idea of the actual capital of the company. That is, about tangible assets without taking into account expenses.
Let's look at a simple example. The company's expenses in this month amounted to 100,000 rubles. His income is 150,000 rubles. That is, the balance will be 50,000 rubles.
This is the most primitive example, which does not fully reflect the actual conduct of business. Expenses and income include not only money, but also material assets, equipment and other property. However, using the example of money it is easier to understand the features of combining debits with credits.
Second option
In addition to the active one, debit can also occupy the opposite position. This occurs when the account on which the transaction is carried out is passive. Consider an example: an organization took out a short-term loan in the amount of 10 thousand monetary units. To account for this receipt in the organization's accounts, a transaction account is determined. In this case, it is number 90, “Short-term loans and borrowings.”
The debit of the account reflects the receipt of funds and, what interests us more in this case, the increased debt of the organization to the financial institution.
"Short-term loans and borrowings"
Debit (D-t) | Credit (Kt) |
CU 10,000 |
If the company repays the loan, then an entry appears on the right side.
For example: an organization took out a short-term loan in the amount of 10 thousand monetary units and contributed 1000 monetary units to repay it. Then the posting will look like this: “Short-term loans and borrowings”
Debit (D-t) | Credit (Kt) |
CU 10,000 | CU 1000 |
Final balance: | |
CU 9000 |
That is, having received a loan from the bank, the company becomes its debtor (it has reduced the bank’s property by the specified amount). In turn, by paying off debt, the company performs another function. It lends to a financial institution (increases its availability of funds). Simultaneously with this process, the organization reduces its accounts receivable. Balance means the remainder. The debit of the account is calculated for a certain period of time: month, quarter, year.
Debit and credit in accounting: 4 important questions about debit and credit accounts
Question No. 1. How exactly do you understand whether an account is active or passive? If, for example, there is some operation that needs to be reflected in accounting, and the attribution accounts are known, what should be put as a debit and what as a credit?
Answer: In order to decide which account is active or passive, you need to use the chart of accounts, which, as a rule, indicates this characteristic. In addition, you can use standard transactions and, based on them, create correspondence for the operation that needs to be carried out.
The main thing is to understand what kind of operation is being carried out and what it represents, that is, what exactly is decreasing or increasing. Based on this information, you should choose where it will be reflected - on the debit or credit of the account.
Question No. 2. Is the list of off-balance sheet accounts a clearly regulated list or is it possible to somehow adjust it?
Answer: The organization has the right to supplement the list of off-balance sheet accounts if there is an objective need for this. In the main chart of accounts, they cannot be changed; you can only adjust the subconto, that is, further decoding in the context of one account.
Question No. 3. Is it necessary to use the entire chart of accounts that is available in accounting?
Answer: The organization has the right to develop a working chart of accounts, which specifically indicates which accounts it will use in accounting for its financial and economic activities. This working chart of accounts must be approved by the head of the enterprise.
Question No. 4. Where in the 1C program can you see “airplane” schemes for accounts?
Answer: These diagrams are used by the accountant independently as additional assistance in posting information on transactions, and therefore they are not contained in 1C software products. However, the principle that is used in the schemes for calculating the final balance can be observed in various reports, for example, in account cards, balance sheets, payroll statements.
Each account consists of Debit, Credit and Balance. The balance of the active account is in debit, the balance of the passive account is in credit.
A debit is something that the account holder has, while a receivable implies a debt owed to the account holder.
Debit items:
- Payment for products, sales of services;
- Receipt of raw materials, materials, goods for sale;
- Acquisition of fixed assets;
- Balance of money in the cash register and current account;
- Accounts receivable, etc.
A loan is what the account owner owes, his costs for the purchase of raw materials and materials.
Articles:
- Costs of raw materials and supplies,
- Wages arrears for workers and management personnel;
- The balance of debt to suppliers and contractors, banks, and other creditors;
- Debt on taxes and fees, etc.
All accounting entries are formed according to the double entry principle. This means that they are reflected simultaneously in debit and credit. The receipt of funds from active accounts is made in debit, and at the same time a record of expenses incurred in the same amount is reflected in credit.
Dt sch. 41 – active account “Goods”, i.e. the receipt of goods is reflected as a debit of the account, and sales as a credit.
Kt sch. 60 – active-passive account “Settlements with suppliers and contractors”. It takes into account all operations that are associated with the acquisition of goods, accepted work and services provided.
On an active account, a debit reflects the receipt of funds and other material assets in monetary terms, a credit represents a decrease in the company’s property, and the expenditure of funds.
On a passive account, on the contrary, the debit shows the expenditure of funds, the decrease in capital and profit. The loan reflects operations to repay loans and increase profits.
All debit and credit transactions of each account are summed up monthly and the balance is ultimately displayed. It represents the difference between debit and credit accounts. The debit balance reflects the state of the account when debit exceeds credit, that is, the excess of income over expenses. The credit balance reflects the excess of credit over debit.
The determination of debit and credit is required to summarize the interim results of the company’s activities for a certain period.
The balance sheet is one of the main forms of reporting, which reflects the financial and economic condition of the company as of the reporting date. Its main rule is the balance of assets and liabilities. If this rule is not followed, it means that the distribution of funds was made incorrectly.
The balance sheet consists of two parts - assets and liabilities. The left side of the balance sheet is debit, the right side is credit. The balance sheet as of the reporting date looks like a snapshot of the state of the company’s financial and economic activities at the moment. Tomorrow, when purchasing new production materials, paying wages, paying loans, etc., the situation will be completely different.
For example, a company purchases production materials by bank transfer from a current account in the amount of 100 thousand rubles.
Postings:
- On the day of surgery Dr. 60 (settlements with suppliers0 100 thousand rubles, Kt account 51 (current account) 100 thousand rubles, i.e., the money in the current account is reduced, due to this the “Settlements with suppliers” account increases.
- When production supplies are delivered to the consumer, the postings are as follows: Dt inc. 10 (raw materials and materials), Kt. sch. 60 (settlements with suppliers).
Thus, a balance is maintained between the assets and liabilities of the balance sheet.
The financial activities of the company must be reflected in the primary accounting documents. This category includes financial statements, which have a tabular form. This table is divided into two parts: the credit is recorded on the right side, and the debit is recorded on the left. The accounting table consists of ninety-nine rows, which indicate active and passive accounts.
According to experts, the type of account has a direct impact on the meaning of debit and credit. These indicators are used to display the order of turnover of financial resources and property assets of the company.
All business operations of an economic entity have two directions:
- Profitable, that is, those facts of economic activity that lead to an increase in financial indicators, an increase in the material and technical base, an increase in the solvency and profitability of the enterprise.
- Expenses that are aimed at purchasing goods, works or services necessary to ensure the life of the enterprise as a whole. For example, payment of utilities, payroll of staff, purchase of material and technical assets, fuel and lubricants and raw materials for production.
Consequently, the debit of the account is all income (receipt) transactions and facts of the economic activity of an economic entity, be it an ordinary citizen, a family or a company. A loan, accordingly, is an expense.
These concepts are widely used in accounting and are inextricably linked. Thus, the main method of maintaining accounting is to reflect business transactions using the double entry method. In simple terms, one specific business transaction in the life of an economic entity is registered in the accounting system simultaneously as a debit to one account and a credit to another. That is, the double entry method is the procedure for compiling accounting records - postings.