7. A company has a significant debit or credit accumulation in the preadjustment balance of
allowance for doubtful accounts over several periods.
Required:
(1) What would this indicate?
(2) How can users detect the source of this problem?
Solution:
(1) This may indicate that the estimates for bad debts are inaccurate and
biased. Consistent overestimates give risk to preadjustment credit
accumulations, while consistent underestimates create preadjustment
8. Preston Bank has $50 million of loans outstanding on December 31 of the current year,
in which it recorded net income of $770,000. Preston did not provide for any
uncollectible loans because all of its loans are collateralized by real estate. That is, if the
loans were to default, Preston would obtain the title to the real estate for which the loans
were made. However, during the audit of Preston’s financial statements, the auditing
company determined that $5 million of the outstanding loans would probably be
dishonored (uncollectible). Because during the last three years real estate values have
deteriorated, they also investigated the real estate that backed these collateralized
loans. The market value of that real estate is negligible.
Recalculate Preston’s loans receivable on December 31 and current net income to an
amount that would be acceptable to the auditors.
Solution:
The allowance for uncollectible loans should be increased from $0 to $5,000,000. This