Types of Accounts in Accounting Assets, Expenses, Liabilities, & More

Sales revenue helps the business to know the profitability of the company’s core business. As sales revenue is one of the most important metrics a company is judged on, it is essential to report the figures accurately. In accounting, sales revenue and revenue can and are used sales revenue account type interchangeably, but both have a minor difference. Sales Revenue is shown under the income statement as gross revenue or net revenue. Through the sale, you increase your Revenue account through a credit. And, increase your Accounts Receivable account through a debit.

Liabilities, equity, and revenue increase when you credit the accounts and decrease when you debit them. Sales revenue has earned its position at the top line of all income statements. It is one of the most influential metrics in business analysis and forecasting. In fact, other figures are often expressed as a percentage of sales revenue. Let’s say that Elite Consulting Services had 250 customers in September, with their average price of services being $20,000.

Revenue accounts

Revenue, or sales, is the income your business receives from business-related activities. For most businesses, the majority of its revenue is derived from sales. However, if gross revenue is shown it will have the contra-revenue deductions listed below gross revenue, and a subtotal for net revenue below that. Equity represents the value that is left in the business after deducting all the liabilities from the assets. Owner’s equity measures how valuable the company is to the shareholders of the company.

• Depreciation and SG&A expenses are deducted from gross profit to find the operating margin, also known as EBIT.
• Sales Discounts as well as Sales Returns and Allowances are all examples of contra-revenue accounts.
• Take, for instance, the business sold $100 worth of products to a customer who will pay the invoice at a later date.
• Groups of numbers are assigned to each of the five main categories, while blank numbers are left at the end to allow for additional accounts to be added in the future.
• There are two main types of discounts in accounting that might occur in businesses such as trade discounts and sales discounts.

So, for example, a retail store’s income generated by selling goods or its products will be sales revenue. Gross revenue is before all the deductions like an allowance for sales returns, bad debt expense, potential sales discounts, etc. At the same time, net income is made after all the above deductions.

Revenue vs. Sales

Sort and track transactions using accounts to create financial statements and make business decisions. Even though it’s subtracted from your sales revenue, don’t be afraid of discounts. They can increase your total number of sales, resulting in higher sales revenue. You will https://www.bookstime.com/ need to debit the contra revenue account and credit the Accounts Receivable account. The historic trend of revenue is analyzed, and revenue for future periods is forecasted. All expenses below sales revenue are often found expressed as a percentage of that revenue.

• Discounts on the price offered, allowances awarded to customers, or product returns are subtracted from the total amount collected.
• Companies such as Exxon post revenue that include both sales and income from supplementary sources.
• If you use accrual accounting, you will record revenue when you make a sale, not when you receive the money.
• The accounts in the income statement comprise revenues and expenses, and these accounts are also broken down further into sub-categories.
• Select this account type if you are setting
  up cost-of-goods-sold accounts to be used when selling inventory
  items.
• This is a contra asset account to depreciable (fixed) assets such as
  buildings, machinery, and equipment.

Revenue is known as the top line because it appears first on a company’s income statement. Net income, also known as the bottom line, is revenues minus expenses. Select this account type if your business
is a proprietorship and you want to record dividends paid to partners
or if you are a corporation and want to record dividends paid to stockholders. This represents equity that is carried forward from year to year (like
common stock). Equity is the owner’s claim against the assets or the owner’s
interest in the entity.

Liability accounts

Investors often consider a company’s revenue and net income separately to determine the health of a business. Net income can grow while revenues remain stagnant because of cost-cutting. This represents those assets that are considered nonworking capital
and are not due for a relatively long period of time, usually more than
one year. Notes receivable with maturity dates at least one year or more
beyond the current balance sheet date are considered to be “noncurrent”
assets. This represents the quantity (value) of goods on hand and available
for sale at any given time.