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Accounting For Reserves And Surplus

Just the way we categorize our expenditures at the end of every month, various…

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Just the way we categorize our expenditures at the end of every month, various business organisations include Reserves and Surplus in their balance sheet keeping their future needs as an organisation in the picture. In simple words, they are the savings of big corporates which can be used as assets during a crisis.

What Do Reserves And Surplus Mean?
Reserves
A financial accounting Reserve is a part of the shareholder’s equity except for basic share capital. A Reserve is profits that have been appropriated for a particular purpose. In accounting terminology, reserve implies the amount set aside for future activities which include buying assets, paying for bonuses or even legal settlements.

Surplus
Surplus describes the amount of an asset or resource that exceeds the portion that is actively utilised. In the budgetary context, a Surplus occurs when income earned exceeds expenses paid.
Reserves and Surplus, as the name suggests, are the accumulated profits that a company has earned and retained over time. Retained profits are the profits that are left after repaying the shareholders. General Reserves are created out of profits and kept aside for the financial strengthening of the company in bad years.

Difference Between Reserves And Surplus
Reserves are the primary amounts that are earmarked by the organisation for specific purposes. Whereas Surplus is where all the profits of the company reside.

Types Of Reserves And Surplus
Depending on their purpose there are various types of Reserves used in a balance sheet.

Capital Reserve
A Capital Reserve is the type of Reserve that is created from capital profits. Capital Reserve is maintained to prepare the company for sudden hazards like inflation, business expansion and funds for new ventures.

  • Cash received by selling current assets
  • Excess on revaluation of liabilities and assets

are a few examples of Capital Reserves.

Capital Redemption Reserve (CRR) 
Capital Redemption Reserve is created when the preference shares or the capital is redeemed. It is a statutory Reserve. When a company wishes to redeem shares a Capital Redemption Reserve account is created to benefit both the creditors and employees.

A Capital Redemption Reserve comes in handy for the company on a rainy day. Several litigations are attached to this reserve such that the company can open this reserve only under certain circumstances.

Security Premium Reserve
It is the additional amount charged on the face value of any share when the shares are issued, redeemed and forfeited. Security premium account is a part of the Shareholders Fund, it refers to the difference between market value and the face value of a share.

Debenture Redemption Reserve
A Debenture is a debt security that lets the investors borrow money at a fixed rate. A Debenture Redemption Reserve must be created to protect investors from the possibility of a company defaulting.

Debentures are not backed by any kind of asset, lien or collateral. Free Reserves are those Reserves upon which the company can freely draw, Debenture Redemption Fund is one such Reserve.

Revaluation Reserve
Organisations have the freedom to construct line items for assets on the balance sheet when they believe it is a necessity for correct accounting to be presented. Revaluation Reserves are not inherently normal, but they can be used when a business assumes that the value of their assets will fluctuate after a certain time frame.

Other Reserves: Specifying Nature And Purpose

Surplus
Surplus i.e balance in statement of profit and loss disclosing allocations and appropriation such as dividend, bonus, shares and transfer to/from Reserve etc.

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Why Are Reserves And Surplus Called Liabilities?
Aren’t Reserves supposed to be good? They are money set aside for future endeavours and hazards, How is being financially safe considered a liability? Isn’t having surplus money a boon?

Well here are the answers to all your queries,

Reserves are considered on the liabilities side of a balance sheet because they are sums of money that have been set aside to be paid out on a future date. To be more precise Reserves are considered a liability keeping the peasant scenarios in mind. Reserve is considered a liability keeping all the future requirements in mind.

Reserves also represent the obligations that the form has, which makes Reserves a liability item. Reserves can be future or potential obligations to various stakeholders or future use of funds to benefit various stakeholders.

For a better understanding, we can compare Reserves to a bank, though the bank is always expected to have money, yet it is considered a liability keeping in mind that money is not for the bank but to meet up with the financial needs of their account holders.

What Is Meant By A Negative Reserve?
Negative Reserves are considered as assets, for example, the money which is due to the policyholders i.e debtors. But these are assets which may be realised or forgetting that the policyholders may withdraw, leading to a policy lapse.

To conclude, accounting at the end of the day is an asset to our lives, it is a massive ocean of its own, here is the address of an Accounting institute in Ahmedabad, they offer various  Accounting Training in Ahmedabad that will turn you from a liability to an asset.

IL&FS Fiasco and Accounting Statements

Recently, the entire nation has been shocked to see that the institution of the…

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Recently, the entire nation has been shocked to see that the institution of the size, scale and reputation like IL&FS has defaulted on its interest obligations.

It is noteworthy that IL&FS was considered to be one of the most reputed borrowers in India and perceived to be a Government backed institution. We have to understand that what makes such a large institution fail. There may be many reasons, but in the context of this article let us look at the accounting statements only.

Following is a summarized consolidated financial statements highlights of IL&FS in recent past.

Accounting statement

Now we have to understand the items line by line. Because, at Super 20 Training Institute, our aim is to understand these items from a practical perspective. And you are aware that it is the best accounting institute in Ahmedabad. Many accounting institutes in Ahmedabad focus on teaching books. Rather S20 as an Accounting Training Institute has set a benchmark by focussing on such case study based practical approach in learning accounting, taxation, tally, GST etc.

It is apparent that the company was the anyways troubled one looking at the above numbers. The company was borrowing at a fast pace and this has resulted into the highest ever interest expenses being borne by the company. The company’s operating profits are decreasing on one side and on the other side the company’s interest expenses shot up drastically by 21%. The sole reason for this difference was that the company continued to borrow funds from the markets and mostly they were short-term borrowings. As you may be aware that in recent past the short-term interest rates are much higher compared to long-term interest rates. Company’s projects were mostly long-term in nature so they had to ideally raise funds from longer term papers. But the company did the contrary.

So, net if you see revenues of the firm were up by 9% in last one year. That looks quite rosy. Now if we look at the operating profits we have a doubt. Operating profits were down by -13%. That means something is seriously wrong. On rising revenues, the company had negative operating profits.

The company’s depreciation was also not in line with the expectations. It was up about 20%. There also somebody needs to dig deeper. And ultimately that has resulted into the company making cash losses as well as accounting losses. This is very alarming and fishy and only some drastic or magical steps can save this company that we can infer.

Friends, we will examine this case from a financial and accounting ratio analysis perspective in my next article. But as of now what we have understood is that the company was troubled operationally as well as financially. If you do not understand any of this topic discussed above you can approach team S20 for more clarity and understanding. You can also write to us at [email protected]. We provide people of any background a simple, effective and practical training in Accounting, Taxation, GST, Tally. You can know more about our courses at www.s20.in/courses

IL&FS fiasco and accounting ratios

We have a space constraint, so let us not discuss what was discusses in…

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We have a space constraint, so let us not discuss what was discusses in the previous article. But you can refer my article IL&FS fiasco and accounting statements for basic understanding.

Now let us straight away understand what are accounting ratios or financial ratios as they are famously referred to.

I have produced direct ratios as calculated by me in MS Excel. If you do not know how to calculate financial ratios or how to arrive at accounting ratios you can approach Super 20 Training Institute – Ahmedabad. We provide such case based, practical and detailed understanding of various topics in our Accounting Courses, Taxation Courses, GST Courses, Tally Courses etc. at our training institute in Ahmedabad.

Now let us look at Operating Profit Margin. In FY1617, Operating Profit Margin was 49%, whereas, in FY1718, Operating Profit Margin was 39%. Such a big erosion in margins is worrisome. That means the company has some serious operating issue which needs to be looked at. Or the figures may be misleading for the previous years.

The next important accounting ratio is EBIT margin. That is Earning Before Interest and Taxes Margin. In FY1617, EBIT Margin was 42%, whereas, in FY1718, EBIT Margin was 31%. This is the significant decline. That means the company has less amount of money to meet their interest expenses.

Finally, we are staring at Net Profit Margin. In FY1617, Net Profit Margin was 1%, whereas, in FY1718, Net Profit Margin was -10%. The company was barely profitable in the previous year. Hence, everything was not ok even in FY1617 also. It was not ignored by everyone concerned with the company. And now we are staring at a big loss in FY1718. Signals were there, but they were ignored.

How default is evident from the above analysis. It is from Interest Coverage Ratio. In FY1617, the company was barely able to meet its interest obligations. On the other side, in FY1718 the interest cover was less than 1.

That means that the company did not have sufficient funds to service their interest obligations. Still, the company kept raising funds from the markets. All these funds were short-term funds basically to see the day has gone off or passed. The management was doing time pass all these days. The regulators were sleeping. The Government thought that the investors like LIC, SBI are taking care of IL&FS. LIC, SBI and other foreign investors were thinking that the management was very much able and worthy. Credit rating agencies were giving AAA rating blindly. Lenders took money from public and loaned to IL&FS thinking it is backed by the Government and anyways AAA. But it was written on the wall that IL&FS is not functioning well. And the worst came true. The institution of this size, scale and reputation are staring at bankruptcy.

Friends, these are the easy tools to analyse the company’s accounting records. Anyone, who wants to understand such topics in detail may contact us at [email protected]. or visit our website. We are proud to be known as the best accounting training institute in Ahmedabad. All the best.

New Batch Starting for Accounting Courses – Register now !

– Register now. New Morning EC Batch starting from June 5, 2018 timing 8…

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