It stores all of the closing information for revenues and expenses, resulting in a “summary” of income or loss for the period. The balance in the income summary account equals the net income or loss for the period. This balance is then transferred to the Retained Earnings account. The trial balance above only has one revenue account, Landscaping Revenue. If the account has a $90,000 credit balance and we wanted to bring the balance to zero, what do we need to do to that account? In order to cancel out the credit balance, we would need to debit the account. The closing entries are also recorded so that the company’s retained earnings account shows any actual increase in revenues from the prior year and also shows any decreases from dividendpayments and expenses.

To get a zero balance in the Income Summary account, there are guidelines to consider. All accounts can be classified as either permanent or temporary the following Figure 1.27.

What Is the Purpose of Preparing an Income Summary and an Income Statement?

The income and expense summary account is only used during the the preparation and… Janet Berry-Johnson is a CPA with 10 years of experience in public accounting and writes about income taxes and small business accounting.

And without closing expense accounts, you couldn’t compare your business expenses from period to period. Close income summary to the owner’s capital account or, in corporations, to the retained earnings account. The purpose of the income summary account is simply to keep the permanent owner’s capital or retained earnings account uncluttered. Once the net profit or loss is ascertained and transferred’ to the retained earnings, the income summary account being a temporary account cease to exist having served its purpose. The income summary account is also known as the temporary income statement account.

Income Summary vs. Income Statement

Revenue AccountsRevenue accounts are those that report the business’s income and thus have credit balances. Revenue from sales, revenue from rental income, revenue from interest income, are it’s common examples.

We know the change in the balance includes net income and dividends. Therefore, we need to transfer the balances in revenue, expenses and dividends into Retained Earnings to update the balance. The last step involves closing the dividend account to retained earnings. Credit the https://www.bookstime.com/ dividend account and debit the retained earnings account. Retained earnings now reflect the appropriate amount of net income that was allocated to it. Closing entries are performed at the end of an accounting cycle and are a way to close out the balances of temporary accounts.

Completing the Accounting Cycle for a Sole Proprietorship

All Expense AccountsExpense accounting is the accounting of business costs incurred to generate revenue. Accounting is done against the vouchers created at the time the expenses are incurred. Learn accounting fundamentals and how to read financial statements with CFI’s free online accounting classes. All of this makes sense as the way it should be happening and the way I am used to seeing things. In this particular case, the net income is not closing to Retained Earnings, it is closing to a different account – Owners Equity.

Income statement is a financial statement, while income summary is a temporary account. While both the income summary and income statement provide a report on the net profit and loss of a company, they differ a great deal. The business has earned interest income of $8,000, revenues of $90,000, and miscellaneous income of $7,400. The business incurred a purchase expense of $50,000, rent expense of $9,000, stationary of $900, ad expense of $1,000, the expense of utilities at $800 with salaries as $40,000.