Posting a Prior Year Adjustment

The example given below is a typical Prior Year Adjustment.

A company discovers its sales have been overstated in the previous year by £100,000, due to a mistake regarding trade debtors.

The error needs to be corrected in the comparative year.

 

The following journals in this example would be applied:

Dr Sales 1 100,000

Cr Trade debtors 586 100,000

In the current year the adjustment needs to be shown as a PYA. Do not re-run opening balances. The opening balance on the profit and loss account brought forward 968/1 (ELTD chart) remains unchanged and an adjustment is posted to 475 (ELTD chart) to adjust the opening position on the profit and loss account to the new restated amount.


The following journals would be needed:

Dr PYA 475 100,000

Cr Trade debtors 586 100,000

The data screen for prior year adjustments needs completing to add an explanation into the notes.

Select Edit | Data Screens | Notes to Financial Statements | Prior Year Adjustments

This would give the following result at the end of the statutory profit and loss account:

Profit brought forward

As previously reported 500,000

Prior year adjustment 100,000

As restated 400,000

Users are then required to manually tag the item when running iXBRL accounts.