Chapter 3
Tallying 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
Bookkeepers have a lot to do to make sure that 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: 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 to be cash sales for the purpose of bookkeeping. In fact, with electronic transaction ...
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