Owner's Equity Journal Entry
(Capital Investment)


Previous lesson: Debits and Credits: What They Really Mean 
Next lesson: Bank Loan Journal Entry


Welcome to our tutorial on the journal entry for owner's equity, where we'll go through the previous example with our sample business, George's Catering, and see what the debit and credit entries need to be.

Check your understanding of this lesson by taking the quiz in the Test Yourself! section further below. And right at the bottom of the page, you can find more questions on the topic submitted by fellow students.


Owner's Equity Journal Entry Example

Here is our previous equity example:

a) George decides to start a catering business and invests $15,000 of his personal funds into the bank account of the business.

To work out the double entry we're going to first review how this transaction would affect our basic accounting equation:

Assets owner's equity increase accounting equation capital
capital owner's equity investment cash

Remember, the investment of assets in a business by the owner or owners is called capital.

The owner’s stake in the business (owner’s equity) increases when he invests assets in the business, because it is his assets.

George’s Catering now consists of assets (cash) of $15,000, and the owner owns all $15,000 of these assets.


Assets (money) increase from $0 to $15,000.

On what side do assets increase?

The debit side (left). So, assets are debited.

The owner’s equity (capital) also increases.

On what side does the owner’s equity increase? The credit side (right).

So, the owner’s equity, and specifically the account called "capital," is credited.


The owner's equity journal entry is thus:

The Dr, as shown above, stands for debere, a Latin word meaning "to owe", and from which we get the term debit.

The Cr above stands for credere, a Latin word meaning "to trust", and from which we get the term credit.

Those are the origins of the words Debit and Credit.

By the way, feel free to return to our summary of debits and credits if you forgot which accounts get debited and which ones get credited.

Reminder: the entry of a debit and a credit is what is known in accounting as the double-entry system.

Double entry literally means two entries.

The double-entry system means that, for each transaction, two entries are made by the accountant. These two entries enable us to show that the total assets of the business belong to the people you owe money to (liabilities) and to the owner himself (owner’s equity).

The two entries ensure that the two sides of this equation always balance.

The double-entry system, and accounting as a whole, is all based on the equation above.


Test Yourself!

Before you start, I would recommend to time yourself to make sure that you not only get the questions right but are completing them at the right speed.

Difficulty Rating:
Beginner

Quiz length: 
4 questions

Time limit:
5 minutes

Important: The solution sheet on the following page only shows the solutions and not whether you got each of the questions right or wrong. So before you start, get yourself a piece of paper and a pen to write down your answers. Once you're done with the quiz and writing down your answers, click the Check Your Answers button at the bottom and you'll be taken to our page of solutions.

Good luck!

Owner's Equity Journal Entry Mini Quiz:

Please note that all fields followed by an asterisk must be filled in.
 

Please enter the word that you see below.

  


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Did that journal entry make sense? If so, move ahead to our next lesson, where we'll tackle the journal entry for a bank loan.



Return from Owner's Equity Journal Entry to Double Entry Accounting 

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Previous lesson: Debits and Credits: What They Really Mean 
Next lesson: Bank Loan Journal Entry



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Click below to see questions and exercises on this same topic from other visitors to this page... (if there is no published solution to the question/exercise, then try and solve it yourself)

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