Adjusting Entries

Receivables is overstated because one account that should fall under ‘bad debts’ is accounted to it, therefore, before closing the monthly books, an adjusting entry must be made to correct the figures. So a Credit Note is issued to correct the final balance of receivables.

Okay, that is accounting.  Let’s shift into our real lives.

We all make mistakes – whether its at school, at work, inside our home, in our relationships, towards the community and in the eyes of God.  At any level, we all experience going through some “happy little accidents” at some point in our lives. But most of the time, the words  ‘happy’ and ‘little’ are left out and the ‘accidents’ remain that we come across with whether it’s our fault or the others.  And sadly, we cannot make any adjusting entry to correct the wrongs that was done.

The accidents that happen interrupts the flow of our lives, alters our plans and sometimes brings us to a crossroad that we never thought is coming in our journey.

I remember the very first job I had as a Payroll Clerk. I was processing the month-end payroll of over 500 employees and it was only when I am already preparing the payslips that I found out  I have not applied the withholding tax deductions for everyone. Sure, it isn’t manually done but I need to enter a code that it is the month-end payroll so tax deductions would be effected by the program. And by that time, the payroll letter and back-up had already been sent to the bank and will be credited to the employees account the next day.

It’s like a glass of cold water was poured down on my head. I just graduated from college a few weeks back then and all I could already imagine getting fired in an instant. Ahhh! I could not explain my fears. Knowing that I ain’t got any option, I told my manager what happened. I was in tears while I am explaining and I was so surprised when he laughed so hard at me. What could be so funny?

To cut the story short, adjustments may be done at the end of the year but I owe everyone an explanation. Right there and then, I wrote my very first internal memo routed to all departments.

Relief!

But how about the mistakes or the accidents that happen in our lives?  That when it’s done, we cannot change anything anymore about it and it becomes a part of the past that will stay behind us for the rest of our lives.  And depending on its enormity - it may haunt us in every waking moment of our lives, or it may be the ghosts that will keep us from proceeding rightly, or it may just be forgotten after some time,  or it may serve as a ground to which we can unleash the strength and courage we never knew we had.  

The most important thing is that we learn a valuable lesson from our mistakes and gain the wisdom from the experience  and try not to do it again. We can share it to others, too, just so they can use some precautions when they would be in a similar situation.

We have to remember that adjusting entries cannot be done in most cases in our lives.  I guess, there’s no need for me to say more.

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