Problem
What was the amount of bad debt expense for the year?
Facts
Net realizable value of account $304,000
Receivable account $384,000
Doubtful Account $16,000
Mathematical Operation
Addition and Subtraction
Solution
Subtract the allowance of doubtful accounts from the base receivable account.
The answer should be the net realizable account. But since there is a given amount of the allowance of doubtful accounts and net realizable value account, it should get the net value account as an answer. This means that the missing amount would fall on the bad expenses.
$384,000-($1600+ N (Bad debt Expense))=$304,000
To get the amount of bad expenses, add the net realizable account to the given allowance for doubtful accounts. Then subtract it from the receivable account.
Amount of bad expenses = $384,000- ($1600+ $304,000)
= $384,000- $305600
= $ 78,400 Answer