Chapter 2

Hire Purchase
Accounts
 Hire Purchase Accounts

2.1 Nature of hire purchase

Hire purchase is a way of buying assets that avoids the need to pay in full either at the
time of purchase or very soon thereafter. The essential differences between a hire
purchase and a ‘normal’ purchase are:
1. The asset does not belong to the purchaser when it is received from the supplier.
Instead it belongs to the supplier providing the hire purchase.
2. The purchaser will pay for the item by instalments over a period of time. This
may be for as long as two or three years, or even longer.
3. The cost to the buyer will be higher than it would have been had the item been
paid for at the time of purchase. The extra money paid is interest.
4. The asset does not legally belong to the purchaser until two things happen:
(a) the final instalment is paid; and
(b) the purchaser agrees to a legal option to buy the asset.

If the purchasers want to, they could stop paying the instalments. They would then have
to give the asset back to the seller. They would not be able to get a refund of instalments
already paid.
If the purchaser is unable to continue paying the instalments, the seller could
normally repossess the asset. The seller would keep all the instalments already paid.

2.2 Law of hire purchase

The Hire Purchase Act 1964 governs all hire purchase transactions in the UK.

2.3 Interest payable on hire purchase

Each payment made on a hire purchase contract consists of two things:

1 Capital. Paying off some of the amount owing for the cash price of the
asset;
2 Interest. Paying off some of the interest that has accrued since the start of
the agreement.

The total payment (1) + (2) made for each instalment may be the same, or may differ.
Normally, however, the same amount in total is paid each time an instalment is due.

Exhibit 2.1 Unequal instalments

1 A high-spec notebook PC is bought from A King at the start of Year 1. Cash price
is £2,000.
2 Hire purchase price is £2,300.
3 Payable in two annual instalments at the end of each year. Each instalment to be
£1,000 plus interest accrued for that year.
4 Rate of interest is 10% per annum.

21
 Hire Purchase Accounts

Exhibit 2.2 Equal instalments

The facts are the same as in Exhibit 2.1, except that each instalment is £1,152.(Each
figure of interest is rounded down to the nearest £.)

Note: The interest for Year 1 is the same for both the equal and the unequal instalments
(in Exhibits 2.1 and 2.2), as the whole of the cash price is owed in both cases for a full
year.

2.4 Accounting for hire purchase

Accounting treats assets bought on hire purchase as though they belonged immediately to
the purchaser.

This is because businesses normally buy assets on hire purchase with the intention of
paying all the instalments, so that the asset finally will belong to them. As they mean to
keep the asset and legally own it after the final payment, accounting treats it as though
legal ownership occurred on purchase.

This is an illustration of the use of the `substance over form' concept. Legally the
purchaser does not yet own the asset (form) yet it does own it from an economic
perspective (substance).
The total purchase price is split into two parts for the financial statements:
1 Cash price. This is the amount to be debited to the non-current asset account.

22
 Hire Purchase Accounts

2 Interests. This is an expense of borrowing money and is charged to an expense

account, i.e. hire purchase interest account.

As interest accrues over time, each period should be charged only with the interest
accrued for that period. This is shown in Exhibit 2.3.

2.5 Illustrations of purchaser’s accounts

We can now look at the ledger accounts which would have been used to enter the facts as
in Exhibit 2.1. (For simplicity, depreciation has been omitted from the example.) Letters
entered against the entries refer to the double entries given above.

23
 Hire Purchase Accounts

2.6 Depreciation and assets bought on hire purchase

Depreciation is based on the cash price. Hire purchase interest is an expense in the
income statement and so does not enter depreciation calculations. Only the initial (cash)
price of the noncurrent asset is depreciated.

24
 Hire Purchase Accounts

2.7 Balance sheets and assets bought on hire purchase

In the balance sheet for a sole trader or a partnership, purchases on hire purchase of non-
current assets can be shown as follows:

Notes
(1) This is the cash price of the machinery.
(2) This is the amount of the original cash price still unpaid.

In Exhibit 2.1 above, if the notebook PC had been depreciated using the straight line
method at 25%, the balance sheet entries would have been:

*This is the balance of A King's account and does not include interest. Balance Sheet
(End of Year 2)

Note: At the end of Year 2 there was nothing owing to A King for hire purchase.

However, in company balance sheets this is not allowed. The Companies Acts do not
permit an amount owing on a hire purchase contract to be deducted from the value of the
asset in the balance sheet. Netting-off of assets and liabilities other than when the same
entity is involved (as in, for example, the case where the same business is a debtor and a
creditor) is not permitted.

25
 Hire Purchase Accounts

In a company's balance sheet, the entries relating to Exhibit 2.1 would be:

2.8 A fully worked example

Exhibit 2.4 illustrates hire purchase more fully. It covers three years of hire purchase and
shows the balance sheet figures that would appear if sole traders and partnerships adopted
the first approach shown in Section 2.7. We'll also be using this example in Sections 2.9
and 2.10.

Exhibit 2.4
1 A machine is bought by K Thomas for £3,618 on hire purchase from Suppliers Ltd
on 1 January 2003.
2 It is paid by three instalments of £1,206 on 31 December of 2003, 2004 and 2005.
3 The cash price is £3,000.
4 Rate of interest is 10% per annum on the balance outstanding at the start of the year.
5 Straight line depreciation of 20% per annum is to be provided.

Note: The letters (A) to (F) refer to the description of entries following the account.

26
Hire Purchase Accounts

27
 Hire Purchase Accounts

Description of entries:
(A) When the asset is acquired the cash price is debited to the asset account and the
credit is in the supplier's account.
(B) The instalments paid are credited to the bank account and debited to the supplier's
account.
(C) The interest is credited to the supplier's account for each period as it accrues, and it is
debited to the expense account, later to be transferred to the profit and loss account
for the period (E).
(D) The balance carried down each year is the amount of the cash price still owing.
(E) Depreciation provisions are calculated on the full cash price, as the depreciation of
an asset is in no way affected by whether or not it has been fully paid for.

In the case of a company, the balance sheet entries consist of balance (A), the cash price,
less balance (F), the amount of the cash price apportioned as depreciation. Balance (D),
the amount of the cash price still owing at each balance sheet date, is shown separately
under accounts payable.

2.9 The seller's books: apportionment of profits

There are many ways of incorporating sales on hire purchase in the financial statements.
The method used should be the one most suitable for the business.

The total profit for the seller of goods on hire purchase breaks down as follows:

In Exhibit 2.4, Suppliers Ltd sold a machine to K Thomas. Assume that the machine cost
Suppliers Ltd £2,100. The total profit upon the final instalment being paid is found as
follows:

Apportionment of profit on sale

There are two main methods for allocating the profit on sale (£900) between the years of
the agreement. (This profit does not include the hire purchase interest.)

28
 Hire Purchase Accounts

1 It is considered profit in the period in which it was first sold to the purchaser. In
this case all the £900 would be shown as profit for 2003.
2 The profit is divided among the three years. In this case, the following formula is
used to fund the amount of interest to be recognised as profit each year:

Cash received in period

× Profit
Total cash to be received

In this case the profits will be shown as:

This case shows equal profits because equal instalments were paid each year. Unequal
payments would result in unequal profits.
Apportionment of interest to profit and loss
The interest accrued for each period should be taken into profit calculations. As the
amount owed decreases, so does the interest:

2.10 The seller's books: accounts needed

We can now look at Exhibit 2.5 taking the details from Exhibit 2.4 as it would appear in
the seller's books. Items (A) to (C) have already been shown in Exhibit 2.4:

Exhibit 2.5
(A) The machine was sold on 1 January 2003 to K Thomas on hire purchase terms. Cash
price was £3,000 plus hire purchase interest.
(B) Hire purchase interest was at a rate of 10% per annum.
(C) There are to be three instalments of £1,206 each, receivable on 31 December of 2003,
2004 and 2005. These were paid by K Thomas on the correct dates.
(D) This was the only hire purchase sale during the three years.
(E) The profit on the cash price is to be shown as profits for 2003, the year in which the
sale was made.
(F) The cost of the machine to Suppliers Ltd was £2,100.

29
Hire Purchase Accounts

30
 Hire Purchase Accounts

In Exhibit 2.5 all the profit was taken as being earned in 2003 other than the interest
allocated to 2004 and 2005. If we decided to take the profit as being earned when the
instalments are received, then the only account is opened: the hire purchase profit
deferred account. All the other account would be exactly the same as in Exhibit 2.5.

The amendments needs are shown as Exhibit 2.6:

Hire Purchase Trading

2003 £ 2003 £
Dec 31 HP goods 2100 Dec 31 HP Sales 3000
31 HP profit (G) HP interest
600 300
deferred
600
3300 3300
2004 2004
Dec 31 Gross profit Dec 31 HP profit (H)
509 300
deferred
HP interest 209
509 509
2005 2005
Dec 31 Gross profit Dec 31 HP profit (H)
409 300
deferred
HP interest 109
409 409

Hire Purchase Profit Deferred

2003 £ 2003 £
Dec 31 Balanced c/d 600 Dec 31 HP trading 600
2004 2004
Dec 31 HP trading 300 Dec 31 Balanced b/d 600
Balanced c/d 300
600 600
2005 2005
Dec 31 HP trading 300 Dec 31 Balanced b/d 300

2.11 Repossessions
When the consumers stop paying their instalments before they should, the goods can be
taken away from them. This is called repossessions, the amounts already paid by the
consumers will be kept by the seller.

31
 Hire Purchase Accounts

The repossessions items should be entered in the books of the seller, as they are
now back in inventory, but they will be valued as used goods.

Exhibit 2.7 shows the entries that must be made in the hire purchase trading
account:
1 On 1 January 2004 we buy 15 electronic agendas for £300 each.
2 On 1 January 2004 we sell 12 of them for a cash price of £480 plus £120 interest to
be paid = £600 total.
3 24 monthly instalments are to be paid of £25 each = £600.
4 Because of the difficulties of apportioning interest, each instalment is taken to
include £5 interest, i.e. 24 x £5 = £120 interest.
5 On 1 November 2004, after 10 instalments have been received, a customer who
bought two of the agendas cannot pay any more instalments. Both of them are
returned by him. We do not have to repay the instalments paid by him.
6 The two agendas returned are valued at £140 each. Also in inventory on 31
December 2004 are three of the agendas bought on 1 January 2004 for £300 each and
still valued at that amount.
7 Profit is to be calculated based on the number of instalments paid.

32
 Hire Purchase Accounts

2.12 IAS 17 Leases

Leasing and hire purchase contracts are means by which organisations acquire the right to
use (lease) or purchase (hire purchase) non-current assets. In the UK there is normally no
provision in a lease contract for legal title to the leased asset to pass to the lessee during
the term of a lease. However, under a hire purchase agreement the hirer may acquire legal
title by exercising an option to purchase the asset upon fulfilment of certain conditions
(normally the payment of an agreed number of instalments).

Lessons fall into three broad categories: (i) companies, including banks and finance
houses, which provide finance under lease contracts to enable a single customer to
acquire the use of an asset for the greater part of its useful life; (ii) businesses which rent

33
 Hire Purchase Accounts

out assets for varying periods of time probably to more than one customer; or, (iii)
manufacturers or dealer lessor (such as car salerooms) which use leasing as a means of
marketing their products, which may involve leasing a product to one customer or to
several customers.

As a lessor and lessee are both parties to the same transaction it is appropriate that the
same definitions should be used and the accounting treatment recommended should
ideally be complementary. However, because the pattern of cash flows and the taxation
consequences will be different, the recorded balances in both sets of financial statements
will also be different.
There are two types of leases: finance leases and operating leases. The distinction
between a finance lease and an operating lease will usually be evident from the contract
between the lessor and the lessee. A lease is classified as a finance lease if it transfers
substantially all the risks and rewards incidental to ownership. If it does not, it is an
operating lease.

A finance lease usually involves repayment to a lessor by a lessee of the full cost of
the asset together with a return on the finance provided by the lessor. As such, a lease of
this type is normally non-cancellable or cancellable only under certain conditions, and the
lessee enjoys substantially all the risks and rewards associated with the ownership of an
asset, other than the legal title. A finance lease is, therefore, very similar to a hire
purchase agreement.
An operating lease involves the lessee paying a rental for the hire of an asset for a period
of time which is normally substantially less than its useful economic life. The lessor
retains the risks and rewards of ownership of an asset in an operating lease and normally
assumes responsibility for repairs, maintenance and insurance.

IAS 17 requires that a finance lease should be accounted for by the lessee as if it were
the purchase of the proprietary rights in an asset with simultaneous recognition of the
obligation to make future payments, in the same way that a hire purchase is normally
accounted for.

Under an operating lease, only the rental will be taken into account by the lessee. The
asset involved does not appear in the balance sheet of the lessee. A lease of land and
buildings should be split into two separate leases, one for land and one for buildings.
Leases of land should normally be treated as operating leases unless title to the land is
expected to pass to the lessee at the end of the lease term. The standard recognises that
the substance of the transaction rather than its legal form should govern the accounting
treatment.

34