T-account

Bookkeepers and accountants generally use the T-Account as a visual aid to depict an account in the general ledger.  The account title will be above the top part of the T.  On the left part of the base of the T will be any debit values or amounts and on the right side will be any credit values or amounts. The T-account could be useful in finding out the correct balance for an account or to find out the amount to be posted so as to appear at the desired balance. Many of the people use two T-accounts while determining about how to adjust the account balance.

Creating two T-accounts will tell us that each adjustments and transactions would have to contain or involve atleast two accounts due to the double-entry account system. The T-accounts is generally used for preparing adjusting entries (deferrals and accruals). You have to start by drawing two T-accounts on a paper and maintain your accounting records in these t-accounts. But these days rather than drawing the T-accounts, now most of the people use the accounting software such as SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, Peachtree, Microsoft Accounting, and Quick Books etc.

Credit, Debit and Account Balance

 In accounting, the term credit means right side and debit means left side. These are generally abbreviated as Cr for credit account and Dr for debit account. The credit and Debit show on which side of the T-account numbers will be posted or recorded. The account balance is the difference between the credit and debit amounts. For some kinds of accounts credit means decrease in account balance and debit means increase in account balance.  For examples see the below given information:

• Revenue – Decrease
• Liability – Decrease
• Expenses – Increase
• Equity – Decrease
• Distributions – Increase
• Contribution Capital – Decrease
• Contra Assets – Decrease
• Asset – Increase

Credits to the above kinds of accounts would mean an opposite result.      

Questionnaire:

• What is T-account?
• What are the uses of T-account?