Nix’it company’s ledger on july 31, its fiscal year-end, includes the following selected accounts that have normal balances (nix’it uses the perpetual inventory system). merchandise inventory $ 44,300 sales returns and allowances $ 5,200 retained earnings 128,300 cost of goods sold 108,900 dividends 7,000 depreciation expense 11,600 sales 161,100 salaries expense 39,000 sales discounts 4,200 miscellaneous expenses 5,000 a physical count of its july 31 year-end inventory discloses that the cost of the merchandise inventory still available is $42,500. prepare the entry to record any inventory shrinkage.

July 31

Shrinkage Expense$1,800    ($44,300 - $42,500)

Inventory  $1,800 Reflects the loss on inventory account.

Explanation:

When the company conduct a physical inventory of their merchandise, most of the time there are discrepancies between physical counts and books values, then it's necessary to reflect that in the accounting,

The correct way is to reflect the difference as a loss in there is less units of goods or as profit if there more units, it's mostly a loss because of damage or theft.

To this case the total amount on the books on July 31 was $44,300 but when the physical counts was made the result was a total value of $42,500, the difference of $1,800 it's reported as a loss to the company in the income statement.