Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Incomplete Records
Incomplete Records
I. A trader does not maintain a ledger and therefore has no continuous double entry record of
transactions.
II. Accounting records are destroyed by accident, such as fire.
III. Some essential figure is unknown and must be calculated as a balancing figure. This may
occur as a result of inventory being damaged or destroyed, or because of misappropriation of
assets.
Incomplete records problems occur when a business does not have a full set of accounting records,
for one of the following reasons.
I. The proprietor of the business does not keep a full set of accounts.
II. Some of the business accounts are accidentally lost or destroyed.
The problem for the accountant is to prepare a set of year-end accounts for the business; ie a
statement of profit or loss and a statement of financial position. Since the business does not have a
full set of accounts, preparing the final accounts is not a simple matter of closing off accounts and
transferring balances to the profit or loss account, or showing outstanding balances in the statement
of financial position. The task of preparing the final accounts involves the following.
Examination questions might take incomplete records problems a stage further, by introducing an
'incident', such as fire or burglary which leaves the owner of the business uncertain about how much
inventory has been destroyed or stolen. The great merit of incomplete records problems is that they
focus attention on the relationship between cash received and paid, sales and accounts receivable,
purchases and accounts payable, and inventory, as well as calling for the preparation of final
accounts from basic principles.To understand what incomplete records are about, it will obviously be
useful now to look at what exactly might be incomplete. The items we shall consider in turn are:
I. The opening position
II. Credit sales and trade receivables
III. Purchases and trade payables
IV. Purchases, inventory and the cost of sales
V. Stolen goods or goods destroyed
VI. The cash book (cash control account)
VII. Accruals and prepayments
VIII. Drawings
Incomplete records questions are a good test of whether you have a really thorough grasp of double
entry.
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Example -01
Suppose Jayan Hathurusingha's business has the following assets and liabilities as at 1 January 20X3.
Rs'000
You are required to prepare a statement of financial position for the business, inserting a balancing
figure for proprietor's capital.
If a business does not keep a record of its sales on credit, the value of these sales can be derived from
the opening balance of trade receivables, the closing balance of trade receivables, and the payments
received from customers during the period
Example -02
For example, suppose that Jayan Hathurusingha's business had trade receivables of Rs 1,750,000 on
1 April 20X4 and trade receivables of Rs 3,140,000 on 31 March 20X5. If payments received from
receivables during the year to 31 March 20X5 were Rs 28,490,000 and if there are no bad debts, then
credit sales for the period would be:
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Again, existing knowledge comes into play, this time of payables. Purchases can be calculated from
trade payables. A similar relationship exists between purchases of inventory during a period, the
opening and closing balances for trade payables, and amounts paid to suppliers during the period. If
we wish to calculate an unknown amount for purchase
A similar relationship exists between purchases of inventory during a period, the opening and closing
balances for trade payables, and amounts paid to suppliers during the period. If we wish to calculate
an unknown amount for purchases, the amount would be derived as follows.
Example -03
For example, suppose that Jayan Hathurusingha's business had trade payables of Rs 3,728,000 on 1
October 20X5 and trade payables of Rs 2,645,000 on 30 September 20X6. If payments to trade
payables during the year to 30 September 20X6 were Rs 31,479,000 then purchases during the year
would be:
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One approach would be to use information about the cost of sales, and opening and closing inventory
rather than trade payables to find the cost of purchases.
OR
Since the cost of goods sold 20
Plus + closing inventory 5
Less opening inventory (10)
Equals purchases 15
Example -04
Suppose that the inventory of Jayan Hathurusingha's business on 1 July 20X6 has a value of Rs
8,400,000 and an inventory count at 30 June 20X7 showed inventory to be valued at Rs 9,350,000.
Sales for the year to 30 June 20X7 are Rs 80,000,000 and the business makes a mark-up of 331/3%
on cost for all the items that it sells. What were the purchases during the year?
Example -05
Harith has budgeted sales for the coming year of Rs 175,000. He achieves a constant gross mark-up
of 40% on cost. He plans to reduce his inventory level by Rs 13,000 over the year.
I. What will Harith's purchases be for the year?
II. Using the same facts as in the question above, calculate Harith's purchases for the year if he
achieves a constant margin of 40% on sales.
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In theory (a) and (b) should be the same. However, if (b) is a larger amount than (a), it follows
that the difference must be the cost of the goods purchased and neither sold nor remaining in
inventory, ie the cost of the goods lost.
Example -05
Orlean Flames is a shop which sells fashion clothes. On 1 January 20X5, it had trade inventory
which cost Rs 7,345,000. During the 9 months to 30 September 20X5, the business purchased goods
from suppliers costing Rs 106,420,000. Sales during the same period were Rs 154,000,000. The shop
makes a gross profit of 40% on cost for everything it sells. On 30 September 20X5, there was a fire
in the shop which destroyed most of the inventory in it. Only a small amount of inventory, known to
have cost Rs 350,000, was undamaged and still fit for sale. How much of the inventory was lost in
the fire?
Example -06
Belindu Lyanage runs a Jewellery shop in Kandy. On 1 January 20X9, his trade inventory, at cost,
amounted to Rs 4,700,000 and his trade payables were Rs 3,950,000.During the six months to 30
June 20X9 sales were Rs 42,000,000. Belindu Lyanage makes a gross profit of 331/3% on the sales
value of everything he sells on 30 June, there was a burglary at the shop, and all the inventory was
stolen. In trying to establish how much inventory had been taken, Belinda Liyanage was only able to
say that:
(a) He knew from his bank statements that he had paid Rs 28,400,000 to trade payables in the six-
month period to 30 June 20X9.
(b) He currently had payables due of Rs 5,550,000.
Required
(a) Calculate the amount of inventory stolen.
(b) Calculate gross profit for the six months to 30 June 20X9.
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