Accounting movements - trading oranges

Using the convention developed in Accounting Conventions and looking solely at the accounts with a start from nothing.

The trading

Investment

So reusing the diagram above you the reader as entrepreneur invests in your own business:

flowchart LR classDef classAssets fill:#CDA; classDef classBusiness fill:#FFFFDE; classDef classEquity fill:#EEB,stroke-width:4px; classDef classExpense fill:#FCC,stroke-width:4px; classDef classIncome fill:#BCE,stroke-width:4px; classDef classInvestor fill:#ECECFF,stroke-width:4px; classDef classLiabilities fill:#DDD; I([Investor]) class I classInvestor; subgraph Business direction LR E([Equity Input **£25**]) class E classEquity; B([Cash Assets **£-25**]) class B classAssets; end I -- £25 --> Business B -- £25 --> E

Buying stock / inventory

I have used the term stock as it is a British English term Wikipedia has inventory as the American synonym.

Having got investment in the business lets buy 25 oranges from a farmer for pound for each orange. This has two transactions to represent the transfer of oranges and cash. Here we are showing both the movement of the cash and the oranges

flowchart RL classDef classAssets fill:#CDA; classDef classBusiness fill:#FFFFDE; classDef classEquity fill:#EEB,stroke-width:4px; classDef classExpense fill:#FCC,stroke-width:4px; classDef classIncome fill:#BCE,stroke-width:4px; classDef classInvestor fill:#ECECFF,stroke-width:4px; classDef classLiabilities fill:#DDD; F([Farmer
-25🍊 **£25**]) subgraph Business direction LR E([Equity Input **£25**]) class E classEquity; B([Cash Assets **£0**]) Ex([Expense **£-25**]) S([Stock 25🍊]) class B,S classAssets; class Ex classExpense; end Business -- £25 --> F Ex -- £25 --> B F -- 25 Oranges --> Business

You can make things more complicated by realising that the stock is perishable and so gets less valuable the older it is but we are going to ignore that here.

Sale of oranges

We now take the oranges to market and sell them at £1.50 each. We can represent this as:

flowchart RL classDef classAssets fill:#CDA; classDef classBusiness fill:#FFFFDE; classDef classEquity fill:#EEB,stroke-width:4px; classDef classExpense fill:#FCC,stroke-width:4px; classDef classIncome fill:#BCE,stroke-width:4px; classDef classInvestor fill:#ECECFF,stroke-width:4px; classDef classLiabilities fill:#DDD; M([Market
25🍊 **£-37.50**]) subgraph Business direction LR E([Equity Input **£25**]) class E classEquity; B([Cash Assets **£-37.50**]) Ex([Expense **£-25**]) I([Income **£37.50**]) S([Stock 0🍊]) class B,S classAssets; class Ex classExpense; class I classIncome; end M -- £37.50 --> Business Business -- 25 Oranges --> M B -- £37.50 --> I

Overall accounts

So now you can have all the transactions together:

flowchart RL classDef classAssets fill:#CDA; classDef classBusiness fill:#FFFFDE; classDef classEquity fill:#EEB,stroke-width:4px; classDef classExpense fill:#FCC,stroke-width:4px; classDef classIncome fill:#BCE,stroke-width:4px; classDef classInvestor fill:#ECECFF,stroke-width:4px; classDef classLiabilities fill:#DDD; I([Investor]) class I classInvestor; F([Farmer
-25🍊 **£25**]) M([Market
25🍊 **£-37.50**]) subgraph Business direction LR E([Equity Input **£25**]) class E classEquity; B([Cash Assets **£-37.50**]) Ex([Expense **£-25**]) I([Income **£37.50**]) S([Stock 0🍊]) class B,S classAssets; class Ex classExpense; class I classIncome; end I -- £25 --> Business B -- £25 --> E Business -- £25 --> F Ex -- £25 --> B F -- 25 Oranges --> Business M -- £37.50 --> Business Business -- 25 Oranges --> M B -- £37.50 --> I

This has led to a problem in that it is complicated to calculate sums as we have two types of things as accounts/nodes (oranges and cash). This is particularly apparent after the buying stage where the business has no cash and 25 oranges, so the value of the business has gone from £25 to 25🍊 Oranges.

Additionally we have no information left in the account balances about the amount of oranges being bought and sold. The flow of money in and out can be seen but the oranges are separate. This is how you handle single entry accounting (for the oranges) rather than double (for the money).

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