What kind of accounts are subject to "reversing" journal entries?

[LouAvul]

Other than accrued wages? Depreciation? Unearned revenue? Interest expense?

thanx

[adamjeeps]

Accounts receivable, Accounts Payable, assuming JE’s are made at the end of the year for these.

[LouAvul]

thanx

[detective]

Are you taking a class? You keep asking accounting questions on FR?

[Above My Pay Grade]

Most g/l accounts could potetnially be subject to reversing entries, but expenses are most common, followed by revenue accounts.

Reversing entries come into play when you make accruals.

For example, if you had an expense for August that you had not received a bill for yet, you could debit the expense account for the expected amount (crediting accrued expenses), and then reverse that entry on the first day of the next month (9/1 in this case).

When you receive the actual August bill, you would debit the expense in September, which would offset the reversing entry, plus or minus any difference between the accrual and the actual.

[Bean Counter]

In theory, any journal entry can have a “reversing” entry if an inaccuracy is discovered. It happens all the time during audits, which is why we conduct different audits in the first place, and there is nothing wrong with correcting erroneous journal entries if new data becomes available.

For example, payroll expenses are “corrected” all of the time for many different reasons. If a worker is laid off, and files for unemployment benefits, it is often necessary to correct the State and Federal Quarterly payroll tax reports for a previous period, if that worker had hours in different States and that information was reported incorrectly. Think Washington residents who work in Oregon, North Carolina residents who work in South Carolina, etc.

Another example from the Construction industry would be correcting any number of expense entries that may not have been reported to the correct cost code, but are already on a previous period’s Profit and Loss Statement. Erroneously charging expenses to overhead or admin costs are very common and errors are often not detected until periodic job performance reviews are done that are designed to detect those kinds of errors, usually well after they have been posted to the company’s books.

Without some further context to frame your specific questions, it’s difficult to give a more detailed answer...