October 4, 2016 
Best Buy Co., Inc. (BBY), the consumer electronics company, has a fiscal year ending on the Saturday nearest the end of each January.
Since Best Buy is publicly-held, it files a Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission each year. To follow are Best Buy’s condensed and adapted balance sheets for the most recent two years. Please note that the original balance sheets were adapted for educational use and should not be relied upon for investment decisions.
The notes to the financial statements contain additional information about the company. To follow is an excerpt from Best Buy’s 2016 Form 10-K related to its receivables.
Summary of Significant Accounting Policies (page 61 of Best Buy’s 2016 Form 10-K):
Receivables
Receivables consist principally of amounts due from mobile phone network operators for commissions earned; banks for customer credit card and debit card transactions; and vendors for various vendor funding programs.
We establish allowances for uncollectible receivables based on historical collection trends and write-off history. Our allowances for uncollectible receivables were $49 million and $59 million at January 30, 2016, and January 31, 2015, respectively.
Please note that the original balance sheets were adapted for educational use and should not be relied upon for investment decisions.
Questions
- Why do you think that Best Buy would select the fiscal year ending that it did?
- What types of Best Buy transactions result in receivables on Best Buy’s balance sheet? How do you know?
- Calculate the gross amount of Best Buy’s receivables balance for each of the two fiscal years presented in the balance sheet. How did you calculate these amounts?
Instructor Resources
These resources are provided to give the instructor flexibility for use of Accounting in the Headlines articles in the classroom. The blog posting itself can be assigned via a link to this site OR by distributing the student handout below. Alternatively, the PowerPoint file below contains a bullet point overview of the article and the discussion questions.
- Student handout (pdf) (word) (contains entire blog posting + discussion questions)
- Excel file containing the adapted balance sheet (for screen readers or for adaptation for class)
- PowerPoint file (brief article overview + discussion questions)
Accounting in the Headlines 
where can i find the answers to these questions?
The answers are not published; the questions are meant for discussion. Also, I have no way to know who would be an instructor vs. students – some instructors do use these as assignments.