Definition:
Expenditure: Payment of cash or cash-equivalent for goods or services, or a charge against available funds in settlement of an obligation as evidenced by an invoice, receipt, voucher, or other such document. See also revenue expenditure, capital expenditure.
Expenses: Money spent or cost incurred in an organization's efforts to generate revenue, representing the cost of doing business. Expenses may be in the form of actual cash payments (such as wages and salaries), a computed expired portion (depreciation) of an asset, or an amount taken out of earnings (such as bad debts). Expenses are summarized and charged in the income statement as deductions from the income before assessing income tax. Whereas all expenses are costs, not all costs (such as those incurred in acquisition of income generating assets) are expenses.
Difference between expenses and expenditures:
The expenditure may be for the purchase of an asset, a reduction of a liability, a distribution to the owners, or it could be an expense. For instance, an expenditure to eliminate a liability is not an expense, while expenditures for advertising, salaries, etc. will likely be recorded immediately as expenses.
Governmental reporting aspects on expenditures & expenses:
Please see below aspects of expenditure and expense by the government.
Expenditures:
GASB Codification Chapter 1600.116 defines expenditures as decreases in net financial resources. In governmental funds, the recognition of expenditures occurs in accordance with the modified accrual basis of accounting. Expenses incurred in proprietary funds are recognized using the accrual basis of accounting. Therefore, significant differences exist between the recognition of expenditures in governmental funds and the recognition of expenses by proprietary funds.
In governmental funds, expenditures are usually recognized in the accounting period in which the goods or services are received and the liability for payment is incurred. However, in instances when current financial resources are not reduced as a result of the incurrence of a liability, an expenditure is not recorded. A common example is the liability for compensated absences (e.g., employee sick and vacation pay). Such liabilities result from current services received from employees; however, the payment of the liabilities usually does not occur until a future date. As a result, compensated absences relating to employees whose salaries are accounted for in governmental funds are not recorded as expenditures and liabilities of the fund until the due date for payment of the compensated absences. GASB Interpretation No. 6 clarifies the guidance for recognizing certain liabilities and expenditures in governmental funds, including general long-term indebtedness such as compensated absences. The matured portion of long-term indebtedness, to the extent it is expected to be liquidated with expendable available financial resources, should be recorded as a fund liability and expenditure. The unmatured portion of the long-term indebtedness represents a general long-term liability to be presented in the government wide financial statements.
Types of Expenditures and Accounting Treatments
The major types of expenditures are operating, capital, debt service, and intergovernmental charges. Operating expenditures for governmental agencies include a wide range of expenditures. Often the largest portion relates to payroll and related employee benefits. The modified accrual basis of accounting requires that proper accruals are made for the amount of unpaid salaries and related benefits earned by employees at year-end because these liabilities will be paid early in the next reporting period.
The other types of operating expenditures should be accounted for in the same manner, with the recording of a liability when the goods or services are received and necessary accruals made at year-end.
Intergovernmental charges relate to the transfer of resources from one school district to another, to or from other local governments, or to or from the state. Examples of such charges include contracted instructional services between public schools, other local governments, or state-operated schools and certain transfers of resources associated with state and local funding (e.g., incremental costs associated with wealth redistribution). Such expenditures are accounted for in the General Fund using the modified accrual basis of accounting. In addition, payments between school districts and fiscal agents of cooperative services arrangements (e.g., joint instructional or servicing agreements) are also considered intergovernmental charges.
In addition, transfers result in the reduction of a fund's expendable resources, but they are not classified as expenditures. A transfer is a legally authorized movement of monies between funds in which one fund is responsible for the receipt of funds and another fund is responsible for the actual disbursement. In a transfer, the disbursing fund records the transaction as "Other Financing Uses" of resources and not as an operating expenditure, whereas the fund receiving the transfer does not record the receipts as revenue but rather as "Other Financing Sources" of funds.
Expenses:
Expenses are defined as the outflows or expiration of assets or the
incurrence of liabilities during a period from providing or
producing goods, rendering services, or carrying out other
activities that constitute the entity's primary operations.
Proprietary funds recognize expenses using the accrual basis of accounting (i.e., when the related liability is incurred) without regard for the timing of the payment. This recognition criterion is consistent with the following guidelines discussed in Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Concepts Statement No. 5. Although FASB Concepts Statements do not represent authoritative guidance for governments, the discussion is useful in classifying expense transactions within proprietary funds.
Immediate recognition. Many expenses (such as selling and administrative salaries) are recognized during the period in which cash is spent or liabilities are incurred for goods or services that are used up either simultaneously with acquisition or soon after.
As examples, the major types of governmental expenditures are accounted for differently in proprietary fund expenses as follows:
Debt service. Principal payments on debt do not represent expenses for proprietary funds, but rather are recorded as a reduction of the obligation. Payments of interest represent expenses to be accounted for on the accrual basis of accounting. Accrual of interest at year-end is usually necessary to reflect the proper amount of expense for the period.
Distinguish between and define the terms “expenditures” and “expenses”, referencing material in the textbook and within...
JOHNSON & JOHNSON AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF EARNINGS (Dollars and Shares in Millions Except Per Share Amounts) (Note 1)* 2016 71,890 21,789 50.101 20,067 9.143 29 Sales to customers Cost of products sold Gross profit Selling, marketing and administrative expenses Research and development expense In-process research and development Interest income Interest expense, net of portion capitalized (Note 4) Other (income) expense, net Restructuring (Note 22) Eamings before provision for taxes on income Provision for taxes on income (Note 8)...
JOHNSON & JOHNSON AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF EARNINGS (Dollars and Shares in Millions Except Per Share Amounts) (Note 1)* 2016 71,890 21,789 50.101 20,067 9.143 29 Sales to customers Cost of products sold Gross profit Selling, marketing and administrative expenses Research and development expense In-process research and development Interest income Interest expense, net of portion capitalized (Note 4) Other (income) expense, net Restructuring (Note 22) Eamings before provision for taxes on income Provision for taxes on income (Note 8)...
JOHNSON & JOHNSON AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF EARNINGS (Dollars and Shares in Millions Except Per Share Amounts) (Note 1)* 2016 71,890 21,789 50.101 20,067 9.143 29 Sales to customers Cost of products sold Gross profit Selling, marketing and administrative expenses Research and development expense In-process research and development Interest income Interest expense, net of portion capitalized (Note 4) Other (income) expense, net Restructuring (Note 22) Eamings before provision for taxes on income Provision for taxes on income (Note 8)...
JOHNSON & JOHNSON AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF EARNINGS (Dollars and Shares in Millions Except Per Share Amounts) (Note 1)* 2016 71,890 21,789 50.101 20,067 9.143 29 Sales to customers Cost of products sold Gross profit Selling, marketing and administrative expenses Research and development expense In-process research and development Interest income Interest expense, net of portion capitalized (Note 4) Other (income) expense, net Restructuring (Note 22) Eamings before provision for taxes on income Provision for taxes on income (Note 8)...
JOHNSON & JOHNSON AND SUBSIDIARIES CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF EARNINGS (Dollars and Shares in Millions Except Per Share Amounts) (Note 1)* 2016 71,890 21,789 50.101 20,067 9.143 29 Sales to customers Cost of products sold Gross profit Selling, marketing and administrative expenses Research and development expense In-process research and development Interest income Interest expense, net of portion capitalized (Note 4) Other (income) expense, net Restructuring (Note 22) Eamings before provision for taxes on income Provision for taxes on income (Note 8)...