The allowance for doubtful accounts is a reduction of the total amount of accounts receivable appearing on a company’s balance sheet. The allowance for doubtful accounts represents management’s best estimate of the amount of accounts receivable that will not be paid by customers.
If a company is using the accrual basis of accounting, it should record an allowance for doubtful accounts, since it provides an estimate of future bad debts that improves the accuracy of the company’s financial statements. Also, by recording the allowance for doubtful accounts at the same time it records a sale, a company is properly matching the projected bad debt expense against the related sale in the same period, which provides an accurate view of the true profitability of a sale.