Difference Between Cash Accounting and Accrual Accounting

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People are more willing to see their profit and loss directly when they do a business. With the accounting method improved, there are two common methods of calculating profit in these days: cash accounting and accrual accounting. This essay will explain the definition of these two methods and discuss the advantages and disadvantages between them. Cash accounting, which delivers the meaning by its name, is a method which ‘records only cash receipts and cash payments. It ignores receivables, payables and other items’ (Horngren, 2010:102). However, compared to cash accounting, accrual accounting is more complex. It is an accounting method that ‘records the effect of each transaction as it occurs’ (Horngren, 2010:102). In general, not only does this method record current cash flow, but also the future one. If a company called, say, Cash Method Company, pays its annual rent of $12,000 in January, rather than paying $1,000 per month all year, it will show a rent expense of $12,000 in January and no rent expense for the rest of the year. If another organization, Accrual Method Company, made the same rental payment in January, its records would show a $1,000 rent expense in January as well as in each month of the year. At the end of the year, the expense records of the two companies will look very similar. At any point earlier in the year, however, the two company records will look very different. There are both advantages and disadvantages between cash accounting and accrual accounting. Vitez (2010) states that cash accounting is an easy and simple way to show the profit and loss because it only records cash when we receive or pay in the period. Besides, people do not need to calculate how much should we pay in every single month. However, it also has drawbacks. The expense and revenue cannot equal at the same time and it only provides a total, people may get

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