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Why is a negative cash balance reported as a liability?

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Question added by Khaled Mohee Eldeen Abbas Mahmoud , Chartered Accountant # 10465 , Self-employed
Date Posted: 2014/10/13
Divyesh Patel
by Divyesh Patel , Assistant Professional Officer- Treasury , City Of Cape Town

Negative cash balance is meant as the liability recorded in balance sheet rather than being recorded as negative asset account.

 

georgei assi
by georgei assi , مدير حسابات , المجموعة السورية

He became the religion of the institution has liabilities exceeded the value of the cash balance

عصام الدين حامد العبيد حامد
by عصام الدين حامد العبيد حامد , Finance Manager , Arab Academy for Specail Education

In addition:

There are two possible reasons for a negative cash balance :

a) A bank accepted a company's checks without sufficient funds in the company's bank account.

b) A company issued checks in excess of a cash balance in a bank.

 

This is an liabilities 

VENKITARAMAN KRISHNA MOORTHY VRINDAVAN
by VENKITARAMAN KRISHNA MOORTHY VRINDAVAN , Project Execution Manager & Accounts Manager , ALI INTERNATIONAL TRADING EST.

The following will illustrate why a negative cash balance is reported as a liability instead of being reported as a negative asset amount.

Company X writes checks for more than its bank balance and sends them to its vendors. When the checks get back to Company X's checking account, Company X's bank will have two options when Company X's checking account does not have sufficient funds to cover the checks:1. The bank could pay the checks and allow Company X's checking account to be overdrawn. (Some call this an unauthorized loan by the bank.) Company X then has the obligation or liability to repay the bank for the courtesy extended to Company X.2. If Company X's bank does not pay the checks because the account has insufficient funds, the bank will return the checks as NSF (not sufficient funds). These checks are returned through the banking system and eventually the bank of the payee will take the amount of the check from the payee's checking account. The payee will in turn reinstate the liability amount owed to it by Company X. In essence Company X did not eliminate its liability to the payee by issuing a worthless check.Hopefully these two bank options illustrate why accountants will report a negative cash balance as a liability.By the way, checks not paid by the bank on which they are drawn are said to have "bounced" or are called "rubber checks" since they are bounced back through the banking system by the bank on which they were drawn. 

Santhosh Kumar Gopinath
by Santhosh Kumar Gopinath , Finance Manager , Arab Financial Services Company B.S.C (c), (Subsidiary of Arab Banking Corporation, Bahrain)

The true nature of negative cash balance is a liability (eg:Bank overdraft facility where bank allows to overdraw up to a certain limit and does not have rights to offset the balance against other accounts, this is reported as a current liability)

Khaled Abdelrehim ACCA DipIFR CMA
by Khaled Abdelrehim ACCA DipIFR CMA , Financial Analysis Assistant General Manager , Khalda Petroleum Company

because there is a creditor (the bank) who will ask for his money. it is not a matter of a decrease in an asset.

FITAH MOHAMED
by FITAH MOHAMED , Financial Manager , FUEL AND ENERGY CO for transportion petroleum materials

AGREE WITH MR DIVEYSH 

Muhammad Hassaun
by Muhammad Hassaun , Shared Services Lead , M&P Express Logistics (Pvt.) Ltd.

Cash can not be negative at any moment. either it will be zero or positive.

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