It is important to keep control over you debtors to make sure that you are not being underpaid, and that you are receiving your money within the terms you have given to each customer. The debtors at the start of the month, plus any new sales invoices raised in the month, less any receipts from customers in the month will be the balance owed to you from your customers. Once arrived at, this figure can be compared to a list of all outstanding sales invoices to check its accuracy.

Example

Debtors Control				£	£
				Debit	Credit
Debtors at the Start of the Month				13,568.97
(This is the debtors figure at the end of the previous month)
Total Sales Raised in the Month				15,684.54
(This is always the gross figure)
Total Sales Banked in the Month					12,845.67
Debtors at the End of the Month					16,407.84
(This should agree to your prepared list of debtors)

List of Debtors
Invoice No.	Total
10521	723.30
10522	4,568.91
10524	5,423.11
10527	1,526.87
10528	3,325.67
10529	839.98
	16,407.84

If your debtors control does not agree to the debtors list, there may be a number of reasons for this. Some common mistakes are provided below:

1. Credit notes raised in the month have not been included.
2. Bad debts have not been accounted for. If you have written a debtor off from your debtors list because it is a bad debt, you must provide for it with a credit entry in the debtors control.
3. Receipts that have not been entered in the cashbook. This error should be realised when you do your bank reconciliation.
4. Mis-additions of bank receipts or sales invoices.
5. Invoices that were outstanding at the start of the period and were still not paid at the end of the period, but have been missed off the debtors list.

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