Introduction to bookkeeping

What the topic requires

These are the requirements for this topic, paraphrased from the official specification.

• Explain the purpose of business documents and prepare the purchase order, purchase invoice, sales invoice, credit note, statement of account, remittance advice and petty cash voucher; also the cash receipt.
• Prepare the purchases and sales day books, returns books, three-column cash book, petty cash book and the journal.
• Explain the nominal, receivables and payables ledgers and record transactions by double entry.
• Explain capital and revenue expenditure and why correct treatment matters.
• Explain the causes of depreciation, distinguish straight line from reducing balance, record depreciation and calculate profit or loss on disposal.
• Explain irrecoverable debts and the provision for irrecoverable debts, and record both.
• Explain and record other receivables and other payables.

How it is examined

This topic is assessed in Paper 1, which lasts 2 hours and carries 100 marks. Paper 1 draws only from topics 1 to 3. Paper 2 also builds on this knowledge because it is more holistic.

Sources: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in Accounting (4AC1) specification (FT Sept 2017) (Issue 1, October 2016), pages 6, 25. See all sources.

Slips our teachers see most in this topic

These come from marking student work in lessons, not from the board.

• Preparing a document with the right figures but the wrong party named as buyer or seller.
• Using the wrong side for the provision for irrecoverable debts.
• Treating depreciation as a cash outflow.

If these slips look familiar, a teacher can go through your child's answers on introduction to bookkeeping and fix the habit behind each one. Book a trial class.

A teacher's note

This topic is the foundation for Paper 1, which draws only from Topics 1 to 3. Our teachers treat it as a build in order: documents feed books of original entry, books of original entry feed the ledgers, and year-end adjustments sit on top. Students who can narrate that flow rarely lose the thread.

Where this sits on the other boards

Our teachers' map of the same ideas in the other documents (an editorial mapping, with the official reference shown):

• Double entry and ledger accounts: Cambridge 2.1 (p. 12); OxfordAQA 3.1 (p. 10).
• Business documents: Cambridge 2.2 (p. 12); OxfordAQA 3.1 (p. 10).
• Books of prime entry: Cambridge 2.3 (p. 12); OxfordAQA 3.1 (p. 10).
• Capital and revenue expenditure: Cambridge 4.1 (p. 14); OxfordAQA 3.3 (p. 14).
• Depreciation and disposal: Cambridge 4.2 (p. 14); OxfordAQA 3.3 (p. 14).
• Other payables and receivables: Cambridge 4.3 (p. 14); OxfordAQA 3.3 (p. 14).
• Irrecoverable debts: Cambridge 4.4 (p. 15); OxfordAQA 3.3 (p. 14).

Keep going

• All Edexcel 4AC1 topics

Official reference: Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in Accounting (4AC1) specification (FT Sept 2017) (Issue 1, October 2016), page 15. See all sources.