| Account | Debit | Credit |
| Bad-debt expense | $100 | |
| Allowance for uncollectible A/R | $100 |
Journal Entry 3 shows a common way of doing this. This entry debits bad-debt expense — which is an expense account that you may use to record uncollectible customer receivables. Journal Entry 3 also credits another account shown as allowance for uncollectible A/R. This allowance account is called a contra-asset account, which means that it basically reduces the balance reported on the balance sheet of an asset account. In the case of the allowance for uncollectible A/R accounts, for example, this $100 credit reduces the accounts receivable balance shown in the balance sheet by $100.
Where the bad-debt expense shown in Journal Entry 3 appears varies from business to business. Some businesses report the bad-debt expense with the other sales revenue, thereby allowing the income statement to show net sales revenue; other businesses report it with the other operating expenses. You should report bad-debt expense wherever it makes most sense in terms of managing your business.
QuickBooks doesn’t automatically record this transaction. You record estimates of bad-debt expense yourself by using the QuickBooks Make Journal Entries command.