Prepaid Rent and Other Rent Accounting for ASC 842 Explained

The rental fee is $800 per month and due to special conditions, we are allowed to make the first payment of $2,400 (800 x 3) at the end of the third month of the rent period. There are some cases when we not  received rent till  due date of rent  under such condition rent received will be accrued rent . Note in our case rent received in advance is liability therefore, it will be credited. This is done to keep legal evidence of the accounting transaction and maintain an audit trail. Step 2 – Transferring office rent expense into income statement (profit and loss account). There are set standards for reporting financial transactions in accounting.

1. Step 2 – Transferring office rent expense into income statement (profit and loss account).
2. The other party may post a journal entry for rent paid in their books.
3. Rent is the periodic payment to an entity for the use of their property.
4. Not every organization will have an identical presentation, but rent expense is now widely referred to as lease expense on the income statement.
5. A company makes a cash payment, but the rent expense has not yet been incurred so the company has prepaid rent to record.

This was considered a prepayment, which is an asset, due to rent payments being greater than rent expense incurred. For an extensive explanation of prepaid rent and other rent accounting topics, see our blog, Prepaid Rent and Other Rent Accounting for ASC https://accounting-services.net/ 842 Explained (Base, Accrued, Contingent, and Deferred). In this journal entry, we record the accrued rent income at the period-end adjusting entry in order to recognize our right to receive the rental fee in form of the cash payment on the balance sheet.

How do you account for base rent?

Under the accrual basis of accounting, we need to record the revenue that we have already earned on the income statement, regardless of when the cash payment is received. From the perspective of the renter, a rent payment for the next month may sometimes be made at the end of the immediately preceding month. In this case, the renter records a debit to the prepaid expenses (asset) account and a credit to the cash account. Under ASC 840, the difference between the actual cash payment and the expense recognized each period for an operating lease is accounted for in a deferred/prepaid rent account. Under ASC 842, this difference is no longer accounted for in a separate balance sheet account.

Accounting for base rent with journal entries

The easiest way to tell is when you issue an invoice or send a customer a bill, does your accounting record this? If it records this transaction as a debtor, you have an accrual system, not a cash system. Tenant – The party who rents the property and pays rent to the landlord is called ‘tenant’. On December 31, 2021, Gray Electronic Repair Services rendered $300 worth of services to a client. It was agreed that the customer will pay the amount on January 15, 2022. The transaction was not recorded in the books of the company as of 2021.

Accrued rent revenue journal entry

First off, we’ll look at accrued rent from the landlord’s point of view. So as you can see, accrual systems tend to be much more complex because they account for a much broader range of transactions than pure cash. But remember, under either system, the basics of the accounting equation still apply. Coming back to where I should be, we are only interested in recording transactions when currency moves under a cash system.

Prepaid rent has different accounting implications under each lease accounting standard. However, under ASC 842, the new lease accounting standard, prepaid rent is now included in the measurement of the ROU asset. Any prepaid rent outstanding as of the transition is included in the measurement of the ROU asset. Subsequent lease accounting under ASC 842 also requires any prepaid amounts to be recorded to the ROU asset.

Accrued rent is therefore recorded as a debit entry on the accounts receivable and credit entry on the accrued rent account. An increase in assets is recorded as a debit which is why the accounts receivable which is an asset account are debited. For example, at the period end of June 30, we have not received the $3,000 cash payment of the June rental fee for accrued rent journal entry the office space rent yet, due to the client’s financial difficulty during the period. We should have received this $3,000 at the beginning of June as in the agreement in which the rent payment needs to be paid in advance. Later, when we receive the rent payment, we can make another journal entry to clear the rent receivable that we have recorded previously.

A company makes a cash payment, but the rent expense has not yet been incurred so the company has prepaid rent to record. Prepaid rent is an asset – the prepaid amount can be used by the entity in the future to reduce rent expense when incurred in the future. In business, we usually receive the cash payment in advance for the rental service, e.g. renting property such as office space or renting the plant asset such as a business car to another party. However, we may come across a situation where the clients request for the delay of rent payment to the next month period for some reasons, e.g. when the clients have financial difficulty, etc.

According to the accrual concept of accounting, expenses are recognized when incurred regardless of when paid. Therefore, if no entry was made for it in December then an adjusting entry is necessary. If your business manages different properties and collects rent, then you must understand how accrued rent works and learn the right way of recording it. To ensure accurate reporting of transactions, it is required that you treat each rent that the company receives as a separate financial transaction. Accrued rent is recorded at the end of a reporting period and when you are using an accrual accounting system.

Example – On 20th December ABC Ltd received office rent from its tenant in cash 75,000 (25,000 x 3) for the next 3 months ie. The accounting period followed by ABC Ltd is from January to December. In this journal entry, both our total assets and total revenues increase by $2,000 as of December 31. Likewise, if we do not make this journal entry of accrued rent income, both total assets on the balance sheet and total revenues on the income statement will be understated by $2,000. This journal entry is made to account for the cash received as well as to eliminate the accounts receivable that we have recorded previously for the rental fee that the client owes. In this journal entry of accrued rent income, both total assets on the balance sheet and total revenues on the income statement increase by the same amount.

Later, when we receive the cash payment for the rental service, we can make another journal entry to clear the receivables with the cash received. Keep in mind however, rent or lease expenses are related to operating leases only. If an entity has a capital or finance lease, payments reduce the capital lease liability and accrued interest, and are therefore, not recorded to rent or lease expense.

Even if a high certainty the performance or usage the variable lease payment is based on will be achieved does exist, the payments are not included in the lease liability measurement. While it is highly probable performance or usage will occur, neither of these things are unavoidable by the lessee until after they have been completed. When the periodic payments are structured so they can not be calculated without the occurrence of an event, such as a number of sales or units produced, the payments are not considered fixed rent. For example, on June 30, we owed $5,000 of rent to the landlord which is the one month of the rental fee which we should have paid during the first week of June. However, due to our difficult situation, we have requested a delay from the landlord and she agrees to delay without charging us the late fee. The account in question is debited to record the related journal entry.