What are Source Documents in Accounting?

The deposit slip will include the actual sum being transferred as well as a split of the cheque and payment amounts. The bank will keep track of the transaction to appear as a received payment on the payor’s bank account and as a fee paid on the consumer’s financial statements. The actual foundation to record business information is known as source documents. When auditors later analyse a firm’s financial statements and are required to validate the activities, source documents are often considered as proof. They normally include an explanation of a commercial transaction, the transaction’s date, the number of funds involved, and a signature of approval.

  • It bears the date of return, quantity and amount, name of the supplier, and the reason for returning goods.
  • Also,
    the debit note can be sent from the seller to the buyer when the amount payable
    by the buyer increases.
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Accounting source documents are documents that provide proof of economic transactions. Note that the purchase order and dispatch note are not records from which accounting transactions should be entered. In very small businesses, such as those that buy everything for cash, the only record of purchases will be the till receipt for payment. For most retail businesses, however, the source document that accountants will work from is the till roll. This shows the total amount taken in for goods and services, whether by cash, check, or card. Popular sources like magazines and news articles are typically written by journalists.

Audit Working Papers

Primary sources are more credible as evidence, but good research uses both primary and secondary sources. The credit note can be sent by the seller when the buyer has returned the product to the seller, fully or partially. In this case, the credit note indicates that the buyer does not need to pay for these products if purchased on credit, or that the seller now owes the buyer a refund, if the buyer already paid for the products.

These types of sources usually don’t include a bibliography and are written for a popular, rather than academic, audience. They are not always reliable and may be written from a biased or uninformed perspective, but they can still be cited in some contexts. Papers that your business obtains from other people or businesses are referred to as external source documents.

The key source document relating to credit sales made by the business is the invoice. As you can see, all of the source documents are used to ensure that only proper goods are ordered, received, and paid for. The goal of a diary is to consistently keep track of all financial transactions in chronological order on a daily basis. This is referred to as a credit note in the supplier’s bookkeeping system because it lowers the amount the client owes. Because it lowers the amount the customer owes the seller, it is known as a debit note in the customer’s bookkeeping system.

Source document

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator. How each source is categorized depends on annual financial reports the topic of research and how you use the source. Your institution’s library will likely contain access to a wide selection of each. Eliminate grammar errors and improve your writing with our free AI-powered grammar checker.

Contents

The same is true for your company, except that you preserve original documentation for all financial transactions, not only charitable gifts. The source document’s information should be recorded in the appropriate accounting journal as soon as possible after the transaction. After recording, all source documents should be filed away in some system where they can be retrieved if and when needed. In certain instances, it may even be important to provide the chain of custody to be able to determine that the source document in question remained under your control. Secondary sources provide second-hand information and commentary from other researchers.

For original insights or an in-depth analysis of your topic, you might consult scholarly books and journal articles. A cash register tape can be used as evidence of cash sales, which supports the recordation of a sale transaction. A receiving report is issued and all three of these documents are sent to the accounting department to approve the invoice from the vendor.

When paying with cash, it’s a good idea to have a paper as proof of payment. When you purchase something from a store, you will normally receive a receipt. When a consumer pays with a cheque or cash, the vendor will fill out a bank deposit slip brought to the banker and present it alongside the cheques and funds.

Sales order

If you are facing an audit or are embroiled in a tax dispute, reach out to our law office today. All of the paperwork needed to create a company’s financial statements are known as source documents. This is in case they need to be audited, according to several regulatory organisations. Think of a situation when we sell goods to customers, we prepare invoices for sending goods, bills receivable in case of credit sales, and cash memos in case of cash sales.

You should also note that the seller may send out monthly statements of the amount owing, or reminders for overdue invoices; these should not be confused with invoices, even though they may look similar. However, news articles are not always reliable and may be written from a biased perspective or with the intention of promoting a political agenda. News articles usually do not cite their sources and are written for a popular, rather than academic, audience. Many websites don’t provide the author’s name, so it can be hard to tell if they’re an expert.

Originality of Source Documents

In most circumstances, photocopies of source documents are legally acceptable. With no source documents to match transactions in reconciled statements, there may not be sufficient documentation to satisfy auditors, which can cause serious problems for your clients. Source documents exist to provide conclusive evidence of a transaction, otherwise known as an “audit trail”. However, as cloud-based general ledger softwares such as Xero and QuickBooks Online have become more popular, many accountants and bookkeepers have shied away from collecting client source documents. At Pridgeon & Zoss, we advocate for both individuals and businesses in their dealings with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Minnesota Department of Revenue (MDR). We often rely on source documents to prove our clients’ case to the tax authorities.

Take your learning and productivity to the next level with our Premium Templates. Access and download collection of free Templates to help power your productivity and performance. The seller will include an unique remark to indicate the amount to be repaid if the buyer decides not to keep an item but returns it to the vendor.

For these reasons, a company should adopt a document destruction policy that strictly controls the shredding or other form of elimination of source documents until a certain number of years have passed. A supplier invoice is a source document that supports the issuance of a cash, check, or electronic payment to a supplier. A supplier invoice also supports the recordation of an expense, inventory item, or fixed asset. An original report, such as a bill or a cancelled cheque that contains vital facts that will either verify or invalidate a transaction, is referred to as a source document. The kinds of source documents you need to save will vary according to the nature of your firm.