It is the summary of income and expenditure for the accounting year. It is just like a profit and loss account prepared on accrual basis in case of the business organizations. It includes only revenue items and the balance at the end represents surplus or deficit. The Income and Expenditure Account serves the same purpose as the profit and loss account of a business organization does. All the revenue items relating to the current period are shown in this account, the expenses and losses on the expenditure side and incomes and gains on the income side of the account. It shows the net operating result in the form of surplus (i.e. excess of income over expenditure) or deficit (i.e. excess of expenditure over income), which is transferred to the capital fund shown in the balance sheet.
image source: indiacaclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/income-clubbing.jpg
The Income and Expenditure Account is prepared on accrual basis with the help of Receipts and Payments Account along with additional information regarding outstanding and prepaid expenses and depreciation etc. Hence, many items appearing in the Receipts and Payments need to be adjusted. For example, as shown in Illustration 1, subscription amount of Rs.2, 65,000 received during the year 2006-07 appearing on the receipts side of the Receipt and Payment Account includes receipts for the periods other than the current period. But the subscription amount of Rs. 2,25,000 pertaining to the current year only will be shown as income in Income and Expenditure Account for the year 2006-07.
Steps in the Preparation of Income and Expenditure Account
Following steps may be helpful in preparing an Income and Expenditure Account from a given Receipt and Payment Account:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
1. Persue the Receipt and Payment Account thoroughly.
2. Exclude the opening and closing balances of cash and bank as they are not an income.
3. Exclude the capital receipts and capital payments as these are to be shown in the Balance Sheet.
4. Consider only the revenue receipts to be shown on the income side of Income and Expenditure Account. Some of these need to be adjusted by excluding the amounts relating to the preceding and the succeeding
ADVERTISEMENTS:
periods and including the amounts relating to the current year not yet received.
5. Take the revenue expenses to the expenditure side of the Income and Expenditure Account with due adjustments as per the additional information provided relating to the amounts received in advance and
those not yet received.
6. Consider the following items not appearing in the Receipt and Payment Account that need to be taken into account for determining the surplus/ deficit for the current year:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
(a) Depreciation of fixed assets.
(b) Provision for doubtful debts, if required.
(c) Profit or loss on sale of fixed assets.
Note that-
1. Opening and closing cash/bank balances have been excluded.
2. Payment for purchase of Government securities being capital expenditure has been excluded.
3. Amount of subscriptions received for the year 2005-06 and 2007-08 have been excluded.
4. Life membership fee is an item of capital receipt and so excluded.
5. Donation for building is a receipt for a specific purpose and so excluded.