When it comes to restricted cash, your company’s financial statements need to be transparent. Make sure your reporting practices are compliant with the current accounting guidance.
What is restricted cash?
Restricted cash is a type of “cash and cash equivalents” that can’t be used for general business operations or investments.
Restricted cash comes in many forms, including:
- Money set aside for a specific business purpose (i.e. a loan repayment, plant expansion, or legal retainer)
- A minimum cash balance kept by a borrower as collateral against a loan
- A customer’s deposit, which a business may be restricted from accessing until the terms of the contract are complete
Restricted cash and the balance sheet
Restricted cash and cash equivalents must be differentiated from unrestricted amounts in a business’s balance sheet—and the nature of any restrictions on cash needs to be disclosed in the footnotes.
Restricted cash should be classified as a current asset if it’s expected to become available within a year of the balance sheet date. However, it must be classified as a noncurrent asset if it won't be available for use for more than a year.
Restricted cash and the statement of cash flows
According to guidance provided in Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-18, Statement of Cash Flows (Topic 230)—Restricted Cash, transfers between cash, cash equivalents, and amounts generally described as restricted cash or restricted cash equivalents shouldn’t be reported in the statement of cash flows as cash flow activities. This is because these transfers aren’t considered a part of the entity’s operating, investing, and financing activities.
If a reconciliation of the total cash balances for the beginning and end of the period is included in the statement of cash flows, the amounts for restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents should instead be included along with cash and cash equivalents.
The new accounting guidance requires that cash flow statements report separate amounts for changes of the totals for cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and restricted cash equivalents during a reporting period. In the statement of cash flows, these amounts are usually found just before the reconciliation of net income to net cash provided by operating activities.
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Even though restrictions on cash are common, navigating the accounting rules isn’t always easy. Contact us today—we can help you report these amounts accurately and transparently.
The cash which a business has restricted to purchase a long-term asset should be reported on the balance sheet under the asset heading Investments. Investments is the first of the long-term asset headings and it is positioned immediately after current assets.
The cash restricted for a long-term asset is not reported as part of the company's current assets because the cash is not available to pay current liabilities. Expressed another way, when the business restricts its cash for the purchase of a long-term asset, the business must reduce the amount it reports as working capital (which is current assets minus current liabilities).
CHAPTER 7
CASH AND RECEIVABLES
IFRS questions are available at the end of this chapter.
TRUE-FALSE—Conceptual
AnswerNo.Description
T1.Items considered cash.
F2.Items considered cash.
F3.Items considered cash.
F4.Cash equivalents definition.
F5.Bank overdrafts.
T6.Cash equivalents.
F7.Classification of receivables.
F8.Items considered trade receivables.
T9.Trade discount uses.
T10.Sales discounts.
T11.Valuation of receivables.
F 12.Percentage-of-receivables approach.
F13.Percentage-of-sales method.
T14.Reporting short-term receivables.
F15.Valuation of accounts receivables.
T16.Reporting notes receivable.
F17.Stated interest rate vs. effective rate.
F18.Financial instruments valuation.
T19.Recourse liability.
F20.Buying receivables with recourse.
T21.Selling receivables with recourse.
F22.Computing receivables turnover.
F23.Impairment of receivables.
T24.Impairment loss calculation.
F25.Impairment measurement.
MULTIPLE CHOICE—Conceptual
AnswerNo.Description
d26.Identification of cash items.
b27.Identification of cash items.
d28.Classification of travel advance.
dP29.Items included as cash.
b30.Identification of cash items.
a 31.Classification of post-dated checks.
b32.Classification of postage stamps.
d33.Compensating balance definition.
b34 Classification of cash restricted for plant expansion.
dS35.Cash equivalent definition.
d36.Classification of bank overdraft.
d37.Classification of compensating balances.