USA Accrual to Cash basis Income Statement adjustments

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Hi,
I help manage the books of a small company, and we are considering switching to Cash basis reporting. We have been using Accrual basis, so I wanted to figure out how to convert and display the accounts in the Income Statement.
From what I have found online, I need to make adjustments using beginning and ending values of various accounts: A/R, A/P, Inventory, and so on - and also ignore some accounts like Depreciation. I understand this.
However, our company has previously created our Income Statements with a single Revenues section and a single Expenses section, which have been acceptable for our purposes. We would display each applicable account in its section, then total these up.

My question is, is it possible to maintain our current formatting when moving over to Cash basis? I've read somewhere that we should call the sections "Receipts" and "Payments" instead of "Revenues" and "Expenses".
Would we still be able to display our accounts within a section, then alter it with a sign if necessary? Furthermore, how would we know under which section each applicable account belongs?

An example of how I'm treating our accounts in Receipts is as follows: Service Revenues is treated as a positive, and A/R is treated as a negative. This makes sense up to a point, but then I wonder under which section would accounts like Loans Payable appear. My problem compounds when I have both a Receipt account and a Payment account as sub-accounts of some parent account... I have no idea where or how to display this parent account.

I have been told not to completely rework the format we've been using if possible, so any advice would be appreciated.
 

kirby

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Use YouTube and search for “changing from accrual to cash basis”. I see about 4 videos there on the topic.
 
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My question is, is it possible to maintain our current formatting when moving over to Cash basis? I've read somewhere that we should call the sections "Receipts" and "Payments" instead of "Revenues" and "Expenses".
Would we still be able to display our accounts within a section, then alter it with a sign if necessary? Furthermore, how would we know under which section each applicable account belongs?
Thanks Kirby, but YouTube doesn't help me with the specific question (quoted above).
Any input would be appreciated!
 

kirby

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There is no requirement to use "receipts" and "payments" in a cash basis statement. To prove that, google "Cash basis income statements" and look at Images to see statements.
I don't understand the second question. Can you ask that in a different way?
 
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Kirby, thanks for correcting my misunderstanding about "Receipts/Payments" - I think I will stick with "Revenues/Expenses".

Regarding the second question, I'll return to my example. I have a Loans Payable account with recent activity. Since this has increased our Cash account, should I record the change in Loans Payable as an addition to Revenues on the Cash basis Income Statement? Otherwise, how should this account be recorded in the report, if at all? Most of the sample reports I am finding online do not include this as an entry.
 

kirby

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Being on the cash basis does not mean you have no other balance sheet accounts except cash. It means you are not making accrual entries. So a good example is the one you bring up: you took out a loan and got cash. So on cash basis entry is DR cash CR Loans Payable. Same as in accrual accounting. Difference is at month end on cash basis you will not accrue for loan interest expense payable while on accrual basis you would accrue the interest expense.
 
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I believe I now understand where I was going wrong. Thank you for the explanation Kirby!!!!
 

BIG E

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Don't forget that if you are switching from the Accrual to Cash basis, for income tax purposes you need to complete
IRS Form 3115 (Change of Accounting Method) to IRS. It works the other way too - Cash to Accrual.
 

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