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Accrue the warranty expense with a debit to the warranty expense account and a credit to the warranty liability account. As actual warranty claims are received, debit the warranty liability account and credit the inventory account for the cost of the replacement parts and products sent to customers.

Divide the amount of your actual warranty claims in the most recent year by your total sales in the same year to calculate your warranty claims as a percentage of sales. For example, if you had $1,600 in warranty claims and $80,000 in sales, divide $1,600 by $80,000.

To record the liability, the company would debit warranty expense and credit accrued warranty, which is a liability on the balance sheet. The purpose of this is to record the cost of the warranty in the same period that the revenue is recognized.

Warranty costs and service agreement costs are not capitalized if the warranty costs or service agreement costs are listed as separate line items on the purchase orders or invoices. Otherwise, warranty costs and service agreement costs are capitalized with the value of the asset.

Apply the percentage to your sales forecast for the upcoming period. For example, suppose you project $100,000 in sales for the next quarter. If you estimate that 1 percent of revenues will pay for warranty costs, multiply $100,000 by 0.01 to find the warranty liability of $1,000.

Factors such as the quality of the product affect the cost of the claims, but unpredictable factors such as fraud, human factors and sales delay must also be considered. Forecasting error affects the warranty provider because the forecast sets the warranty reserve, which should cover the costs of the warranty claims.

The key to proper revenue recognition for warranties is to first determine if the warranty provides a service to the customer beyond the required agreed-upon specifications. Next, the seller or company must allocate the price to both the product and separate warranty obligation based on standalone prices.