To calculate the bond payment, multiply the periodic interest rate by the bond’s par value. If the bond’s par value is $2,000, you would multiply 0.06 by $2,000 to get $120 as the bond payment in this case.
What is the bond amount?
Bonds payable is a liability account that holds the amount that the issuer owes to bondholders. Because bonds frequently mature in more than one year, this account is usually seen in the long-term liabilities part of the balance sheet. If they are due to mature in less than a year, the line item is moved to the current liabilities part of the balance sheet.
The face value of the bonds, the interest rate to be paid to bond holders, special repayment terms, and any covenants placed on the issuing corporation are all contained in the bond indenture agreement.
What is an example of bonds payable?
Typically, public utilities issue bonds to help finance a new electric power plant, hospitals issue bonds for new buildings, and governments issue bonds to fund projects, cover operational deficits, or redeem maturing bonds.
For example, a prosperous public utility might issue 30-year bonds to cover half of the cost of a new energy generating power plant. If the current market interest rate on bonds is 4%, the cost after income tax savings might be as low as 3%.
Key Points
- When a bond is sold, the face amount of the bond is credited to the “bonds payable” liability account. The amount of money received from the sale is debited from the company’s cash account. The discount value is the difference between the face value and the sales price.
- Divide the discount amount by the number of periods the corporation has to pay interest to obtain the amortization rate for the bond’s discount balance.
- A business credits the bond discount account by the amortization rate and credits cash by the amount of money it spends in interest expense to record interest expense. The sum of the amortization rate and the amount of interest paid to the bond holder is deducted from interest expense.
- When the bond expires, the company must record the repayment of the principal as well as the final interest payments to the bondholder. All cash payments must be recorded at this time, and the discount on bond payable and bond payable accounts must be canceled out.
Bonds payable are they a liability?
Debentures, long-term loans, bonds payable, deferred tax liabilities, long-term leasing commitments, and pension benefit payments are examples of noncurrent liabilities. A noncurrent liability is the portion of a bond obligation that will not be paid within the next year. Warranties that last longer than a year are also classified as noncurrent liabilities. Deferred salary, deferred revenue, and some health-care liabilities are among more examples.
What is the average bond payable balance?
When a company prepares a bond to be issued/sold to investors, it may need to factor in the interest rate that will appear on the bond’s face and in its legal contract. Assume that the company issues a $100,000 bond with a 9% interest rate. A financial crisis happens just before the bond is issued, and the market interest rate for this sort of bond rises to 10%. If the company proceeds with the sale of its 9% bond in the 10% market, it will receive less than $100,000. A bond is considered to have been sold at a discount when it is sold for less than its face value. The difference between the amount received (excluding accrued interest) and the bond’s face amount is known as the discount. The terms “discount on bonds payable,” “bond discount,” and “discount” are used to describe the difference.
Assume a corporation prepares a 9% $100,000 bond dated January 1, 2020 in early December 2019 to demonstrate the discount on bonds payable. Until the bond matures on December 31, 2024, interest payments of $4,500 ($100,000 x 9% x 6/12) will be due on June 30 and December 31 each year.
Let’s now say that the market interest rate on this bond rises to 10% immediately before it is offered to investors on January 1st. Rather of revising the bond paperwork to reflect the market interest rate, the firm decides to sell the 9% bond. Because the corporation is selling its 9% bond in a market that is wanting 10%, the corporation will receive less than the bond’s face value.
Assume that on January 1, 2020, the 9 percent bond is sold in the 10% market for $96,149 plus $0 accrued interest to demonstrate the accounting for bonds payable issued at a discount. The following is the journal entry that the corporation will make to document the bond sale:
Because it will have a debit balance, the account Discount on Bonds Payable (or Bond Discount or Unamortized Bond Discount) is a contra liability account. The account Bonds Payable will always show a discount on Bonds Payable on the balance sheet. In other words, if the bond is a long-term liability, the balance sheet will show both Bonds Payable and Discount on Bonds Payable as long-term liabilities. The book value or carrying value of the bonds is the sum of these two accounts, or the net of these two accounts. The book value of this bond on January 1, 2020 is $96,149 (the $100,000 credit balance in Bonds Payable minus the $3,851 debit amount in Discount on Bonds Payable).
Discount on Bonds Payable with Straight-Line Amortization
The sum in the account Discount on Bonds Payable must be lowered to zero over the life of the bond. Amortizing or amortization is the process of reducing the account amount in a rational manner. Because the difference between a bond’s stated and market interest rates causes the discount, the journal entry for amortizing the discount will use the account Interest Expense.
The bond discount of $3,851 in our example arises from the firm getting only $96,149 from investors but needing to pay them $100,000 when the bond matures. Over the life of the bonds, the $3,851 discount is recognized as an additional interest charge. Straight-line amortization occurs when the same amount of bond discount is recorded each year. The straight-line amortization in this case would be $770.20 ($3,851 divided by the bond’s 5-year duration).
Straight-Line Amortization of Bond Discount on Annual Financial Statements
If a company only publishes yearly financial statements on December 31, bond discount amortization is frequently reflected when the company makes semiannual interest payments. In our case, the straight-line technique will result in the following journal entries for 2020:
The total interest expense for 2020 will be $9,770 (two semiannual interest payments of $4,500 each + two semiannual bond discount amortizations of $385 each). The entries for the year 2020 are shown in the T-account for Interest Expense:
The T-account below shows how the balance in Discount on Bonds Payable will decrease over the bond’s 5-year tenure.
The bond’s book value will increase from $96,149 on the date the bond was issued to $100,000 at maturity as the bond discount is amortized:
Straight-Line Amortization of Bond Discount on Monthly Financial Statements
The monthly amount of bond discount amortization under the straight-line technique will be $64.18 ($3,851 of bond discount divided by the bond’s life of 60 months) if the corporation releases monthly financial statements. During the year 2020, the 12 monthly journal entries for bond interest and bond discount amortization, as well as the entries for the June 30 and December 31 semiannual interest payments, will result in the following 14 entries:
If all of the bonds remain outstanding, the journal entries for the future years will be similar.
Is it a credit or a debit to pay bonds?
Bond redemption is accounted for. All premiums and discounts should have been amortized by the time the bonds are redeemed, so the entry is simply a debit to the bonds payable account and a credit to the cash account.
What is the distinction between a payable bond and a payable note?
Most bonds, for example, are designed so that the corporation repays the entire loan sum at some time in the future, usually on the maturity date. The corporation will pay its interest charge on a regular basis, usually once a month.
A note payable could be organized in the same way, but neither must be constructed in this or any other way. If they were both equally organized, the impact on the balance sheet and income statement would be the same. The two instruments are structurally and practically identical.
Securities regulations are the primary distinction between notes payable and bonds. Bonds are always treated as securities and are regulated as such, although notes due are not always treated as securities. Mortgage notes, commercial paper, and other short-term notes, for example, are explicitly defined as not being securities under securities law. Other payable notes may or may not be securities, depending on the law, convention, and regulations.
The best approach to figure out whether a debt is a note or a bond is to look at the duration of the debt. Shorter-term loans, such as those with a maturity of less than a year, are more likely to be classified as notes. Bonds are more likely to be debts with longer terms, except the specific notes payable listed above.
The way the United States organizes its own debt offers is a good example of this notion. The maturity of a Treasury note ranges from one to ten years. A Treasury bond is a long-term investment with a maturity of more than ten years. Treasury notes are short-term Treasuries with maturities of less than one year.
The three classifications are entirely arbitrary, and are based on how far each loan will mature in the future. When evaluating whether a debt is a bond or a note payable, the same fundamental notion applies.
What type of account is the bond premium payable?
A liability account with a credit balance for bonds payable that were issued at a price higher than their face or maturity value. The premium on payable bonds is deducted from interest expenditure over the bonds’ term, resulting in a reduction in interest expense. See Explanation of Bonds Payable for further information.
How should the discount on payable bonds be shown in the financial statements premium on payable bonds?
The discount (premium) on bonds payable should be represented as a straight deduction from (addition to) the face amount of the bond in the balance sheet. Both of these accounts are liability valuation accounts.