Learning Exercise
Accounting Debits vs. Credits
Students will answer questions about the T-account of each account given. They will need to decipher if the account has a debit balance or a credit balance and which is its normal increase side. A worksheet is given to each student that I created in Microsoft Excel to really display the T-accounts and how the Accounting Equation truly works. We will first take notes as a class, then review the worksheet I created in MS Excel and finally the students will complete the assessment worksheet at the end of the period.
Course: Accounting
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The Accounting Cycle, a Debit and Credit Approach by Walter Antoniotti explains accounting for a merchandising company.... see more
Exercise
Key terms
Account: a location within an accounting system in which the increases and decreases in a specific asset, liability, or owners equity are recorded and stored
Ledger: a book or file containing a separate page for each business account. It serves as a permanent record of financial transactions
Chart of Accounts: a list of all the accounts and their assigned account numbers
Assets begin with 1, Liabilities begin with 2, Owners Equity begin with 3, Revenue begin with 4, Expense begin with 5.
Double Entry Accounting: a system of record keeping in which each transaction affects at least two accounts (requires at least two accounts be affected w/ every transaction)
T accounts: because of its T-shape, shows the dollar increase or decrease in an account that is caused by a transaction
*T accounts help the accountant analyze the parts of a business transaction
Debit: an amount entered on the LEFT side of the T account
Credit: an amount entered on the RIGHT side of the T account
*The words DEBIT and CREDIT are the accountants terms for LEFT and RIGHT
Normal Balance: an accounts normal balance is always on the side used to record increases to the account.
*Normal = increase. Whatever side increases the account is the normal balance
*You will always have at least (1) Debit and at least (1) Credit.
*You will never have ONLY 2 Debits or ONLY 2 Credits
*After each transaction what you Debit must = what you Credit
Rules for Asset Accounts
1. An asset account is INCREASED (+) on the DEBIT side (left side).
2. An asset account is DECREASED (-) on the CREDIT side (right side).
3. The normal balance for an asset account is the INCREASE side, or the DEBIT side.
Rules for Liability and Owners Equity
4. Liability and Owners Equity accounts are INCREASED on the CREDIT side (right side).
5. Liability and Owners Equity accounts are DECREASED on the DEBIT side (left side).
6. The normal balance for liability and owners equity accounts is the INCREASE side, or the CREDIT side.