What Is an Income Summary Account?

Closing the income summary account Assuming that total revenues were $10,400 and total expenses were $6,000, prepare the entry in journal form to close the Income Summary account to the R. The post-closing trial balance only contains the asset, liabilities and equity accounts which are considered to be permanent/real. These accounts are also those forwarded to the balance sheet. Temporary accounts are used to record accounting activity during a specific period.

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Closing the Income Summary Account

The second entry closes expense accounts to the Income Summary account. The third entry closes the Income Summary account to Retained Earnings. The fourth entry closes the Dividends account to Retained Earnings. The information needed to prepare closing entries comes from the adjusted trial balance. To further clarify this concept, balances are closed to assure all revenues and expenses are recorded in the proper period and then start over the following period. The revenue and expense accounts should start at zero each period, because we are measuring how much revenue is earned and expenses incurred during the period.

The credit to income summary should equal the total revenue from the income statement. You might be asking yourself, “is the https://www.bookstime.com/ even necessary? ” Could we just close out revenues and expenses directly into retained earnings and not have this extra temporary account? We could do this, but by having the Income Summary account, you get a balance for net income a second time.

Profitability Evaluation

This way each accounting period starts with a zero balance in all the temporary accounts. After the closing entries have been made, the temporary account balances will be reflected in the Retained Earnings . However, an intermediate account called Income Summary usually is created. Revenues and expenses are transferred to the Income Summary account, the balance of which clearly shows the firm’s income for the period. A term often used for closing entries is “reconciling” the company’s accounts. Accountants perform closing entries to return the revenue, expense, and drawing temporary account balances to zero in preparation for the new accounting period. The income summary account is only used in closing process accounting.

Closing entries are the last step in the accounting cycle. All income statement balances are eventually transferred to retained earnings. Because expenses are decreased by credits, you must credit the account and debit the income summary account.

What Is a Closing Entry?

All revenue and expense accounts must end with a zero balance because they are reported in defined periods and are not carried over into the future. For example, $100 in revenue this year does not count as $100 of revenue for next year, even if the company retained the funds for use in the next 12 months. The purpose of the closing entry is to reset the temporaryaccount balancesto zero on the general ledger, the record-keeping system for a company’s financial data.

• Temporary accounts include revenue, expenses, and dividends, and these accounts must be closed at the end of the accounting year.
• DebitDebit represents either an increase in a company’s expenses or a decline in its revenue.
• Revenues and expenses are transferred to the Income Summary account, the balance of which clearly shows the firm’s income for the period.
• And without closing expense accounts, you couldn’t compare your business expenses from period to period.
• Let’s explore each entry in more detail using Printing Plus’s information fromAnalyzing and Recording TransactionsandThe Adjustment Processas our example.
• One such expense that is determined at the end of the year is dividends.

It allows the listing of all the revenues and expenses in summarized form, and such forms are then used for the purpose of performance analysis. The following points are important to highlight related to the above income summary account for Bob and his company, Bob’s Donut Shoppe, Inc. Financial StatementsFinancial statements are written reports prepared by a company’s management to present the company’s financial affairs over a given period . Financial statements are written reports prepared by a company’s management to present the company’s financial affairs over a given period . It is shown as the part of owner’s equity in the liability side of the balance sheet of the company.