What Is The Matching Principle?

Get instant access to video lessons taught by experienced investment bankers. Learn financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel shortcuts. Now, if we apply the matching principle discussed earlier to this scenario, the expense must be matched with the revenue generated by the PP&E. One of the most straightforward examples of understanding the matching principle is the concept of depreciation. The matching principle stabilizes the financial performance of companies to prevent sudden increases in profitability which can often be misleading without understanding the full context. Thank you for reading this guide to understanding the accounting concept of the matching principle.

• As a result, the company amortizes the cost of the building over its useful life.
• Looking at the cash flow, investors will be able to see whether there is enough cash to cover the company’s payables.
• Not all costs and expenses have a cause and effect relationship with revenues.
• If you’re using the accrual method of accounting, you need to be using the matching principle as well.
• In other words, businesses don’t have to wait to receive cash from customers to record the revenue from sales.

By matching them together, investors get a better sense of the true economics of the business. The matching principle is a part of the accrual accounting method and presents a more accurate picture of a company’s operations on the income statement. According to the matching principle, both the commission fees and cosmetic sales must be recorded in the same accounting period.

What is revenue recognition?

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One example of the matching principle is when a company records the cost of an asset over its useful life. This matches the expense of the asset with the revenues that it generates. Company XYZ sales are made by sales representatives who take a 10% commission. The commissions are paid in the middle of each month, i.e. 15th day of each month. The company sales are $80,000 in March 2020 and the total commissions paid on 15th March amount to $8,000 out of which $3,000 are related to the previous month. Depreciation ExpenseDepreciation is a systematic allocation method used to account for the costs of any physical or tangible asset throughout its useful life. Its value indicates how much of an asset’s worth has been utilized.

Revenue, Expense, Cost, Cash Flow

As a result, the matching concept does not apply under “cash basis accounting.” One of the benefits of using the matching principle is financial statement consistency. If revenues and expenses are not recorded properly, both your balance sheet and your income statement will be inaccurate. The matching principle states that expenses should be recognized and recorded when those expenses can be matched with the revenues those expenses helped to generate. Expenses should be recorded as the corresponding revenues are recorded.

The increased incremental revenue due to the marketing effort cannot be allocated directly to the cost since both the timing and amount are unknown. In this case, the What is the Matching Principle in Accounting online marketing spend will be treated as an expense on the income statement for the period the ads are shown, instead of when the resulting revenues are received.