午夜剧场

[Example] Four months ago, goods worth 70 yen were sold to Company C, a customer, and last month, goods worth 90 yen were sold. Today, goods worth 60 yen were sold. Given the condition that "if the annual transaction volume exceeds 300 yen, a 5% rebate will be applied retroactively," what kind of accounting treatment (journal entry) should be performed?

In first-year bookkeeping courses at universities, lectures often focus on how to prepare corporate financial statements. With textbooks full of technical terms in hand, students first "get used to calculation problems with a calculator" and then "highlight and memorize the wording of accounting standards"... Many of these transactions are difficult to imagine for students who were high schoolers until just recently. Nevertheless, they can be seen repeatedly practicing for various exams to learn "what kind of journal entry is the 'correct answer'."

Daily sales activities, such as providing goods or services to customers and receiving payment, are essential to corporate management. The results are recorded at the very top of the income statement as "annual net sales," but behind this lie various strategies for sales promotion. The "Accounting Standard for Revenue Recognition" published in March 2018 does not apply to all companies, but rebates, which had been processed differently by each company, were newly categorized as "variable consideration."

In conclusion, the sales for today in the [Example] appear to be calculated as 49 yen. This is because it was stipulated that the "transaction price" should be calculated by deducting 11 yen (5% of the cumulative sales of 220 yen up to that point), even if the rebate condition has not yet been met. However, in reality, the company has only "sold 60 yen worth of goods," and the rebate is merely a future possibility. Even if 60 yen is written on vouchers such as delivery notes and invoices, 49 yen is entered in the journal... Is this the arrival of a new era where "current" sales are determined by incorporating "future" rebates?

Generally, the feeling may be that journal entries are made "to prepare financial statements." In contrast, from the perspective that "journal entries may have the ability to express a company's economic activities," one could flexibly derive an "alternative answer" where sales are recorded as 60 yen while preparing for future rebates as a potential decrease in sales.

Furthermore, in "taxation," it appears that 60 yen is included in the amount of gross income. The journey of journal entries surrounding bookkeeping, accounting, and taxation continues.