Question 7: Briefly explain the benefits of maintaining a Bills Payable Book and state how is its posting is done in the ledger?
Answer:
A Bills Payable Book is a special purpose book, maintained to keep records of acceptance of bills, given to the creditors. It contains details of the amount, date of bill, due date, to whom acceptance is given, etc., for future references. It is totaled periodically and its balance is transferred to the credit side of the bills payable account. Benefits of Maintaining Bills Payable Book:
a. Availability of information: All the information related to the bills payable are recorded at one place, such as the amount, due date, etc.
b. Possibility of fraud: Since all the bills are recorded at one place, possibility of fraud is minimized.
c. Responsibility: All the transactions are recorded by the same person. Therefore, errors can be easily detected and rectified. This leads to a higher degree of responsibility and accountability of the accountant.
d. Time efficient: Recording of bills payable through the bills payable book takes lesser time than that of journal entry.
Therefore, it saves time of the accountant in recording numerous transactions of repetitive and routine nature. The postings from these books are made to the debit of the account of every creditor to whom acceptance has been given and the periodical total of the books is credited to the ‘Bills Payable Account’ in the ledger.
The bills payable account representing the liability of the acceptor in respect of bills accepted by him, always has credit balance, if any. The credit balance of this account on any particular date must be the same as the total amount worth of bills payable yet to be presented for payment as ascertained from the bills payable book.
Add Comment