Accounting All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 3

Counting Your Sales

In This Chapter

Taking in cash and offering in-store credit

Staying on top of discounts, returns, and allowances

Monitoring customer payments due

Dealing with bad debt

Every business loves to take in money, and that means bookkeepers have a lot to do to make sure sales are properly tracked and recorded in the books. In addition to recording the sales, you must track customer accounts, discounts offered to customers, and customer returns and allowances. Unfortunately, some customers never pay, in which case you must adjust the books to reflect nonpayment as a bad debt.

This chapter reviews the basic responsibilities that fall to a business's bookkeeping and accounting staff for tracking sales, making adjustments to those sales, monitoring customer accounts, and alerting management to slow- and no-paying customers.

Collecting on Cash Sales

Most businesses collect some form of cash as payment for the goods or services they sell. Cash receipts include more than just bills and coins; checks and credit cards also are considered cash sales for the purpose ...