JAMB Principles of Accounts 2024 past questions

Checked by the Skolra question team · Last updated 23 October 2026

Ten questions from the 2024 JAMB Principles of Accounts paper, with answers and explanations. We hold 75 questions from this paper, and the Skolra app has all of them.

JAMB Principles of Accounts 2024 questions and answers

1. 1.

   Rent accrued at the end of an accounting period is a

   1. A
      current asset
   2. B
      long-term liability
   3. C
      current liability
      Correct
   4. D
      fixed asset
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   Answer: C

   Rent accrued simply means rent owing: the business has enjoyed the use of the premises for the period, so the expense belongs to that period, but the money has not yet been paid to the landlord as at the balance sheet date.

   By the accruals (matching) concept, you must charge the full rent for the period to the Profit and Loss Account, and carry the unpaid part forward as an amount the business still owes. The entry is Dr Rent Account (to increase the expense) and Cr Rent Accrued (to create the obligation). Since that debt will normally be settled within the next twelve months, it appears in the Balance Sheet under current liabilities, often listed as "accruals" or "expenses owing".

2. 2.

   An example of accounts in the nominal ledger is

   1. A
      Rent and rates account
      Correct
   2. B
      Motor vehicle account
   3. C
      Debtors account
   4. D
      Creditors account
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   Answer: A

   The ledger is divided so that each type of account has a home. Personal accounts of customers live in the sales (debtors) ledger, personal accounts of suppliers live in the purchases (creditors) ledger, and impersonal accounts live in the general ledger. The nominal ledger is the part that keeps nominal accounts only, that is, accounts for expenses, losses, incomes and gains: rent, rates, wages, salaries, carriage, discount allowed, discount received, commission received and the like.

3. 3.

   Goodwill is taken into account in partnership business when

   1. A
      interest on partners' drawings is charged in the appropriation account
   2. B
      the existing partners introduce additional capital into the business
   3. C
      the firm records a net loss at the end of the financial year
   4. D
      there is a change in the constitution of the partnership firm
      Correct
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   Answer: D

   Goodwill is the value of the good name, customer connection and earning power that the old partners have built up over the years. It is an intangible asset, and in a going concern the partners do not keep revaluing it every year. It is only brought into the books when the constitution of the firm changes — that is, when a new partner is admitted, when a partner retires or dies, when the partners agree a new profit-sharing ratio, or when the firm amalgamates or is dissolved.

4. 4.

   A list of all debit and credit balances from the ledger accounts are made in the

   1. A
      cash book
   2. B
      trial balance
      Correct
   3. C
      balance sheet
   4. D
      general journal
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   Answer: B

   Follow the accounting cycle: transactions are first entered in the books of original entry (journals), then posted to the ledger accounts. At the end of the period each ledger account is balanced off, and every one of those debit and credit balances is copied into one schedule with a debit column and a credit column. That schedule is the trial balance.

   Its purpose is to test the arithmetical accuracy of the double entry: if total debits equal total credits, the books agree. Note that it is only a working list, not part of the double entry and not a final account.

5. 5.

   A commission of #5000 to a sales manager was debited to debtors account. This is an error of

   1. A
      principle
      Correct
   2. B
      original entry
   3. C
      complete reversal of entries
   4. D
      commission
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   Answer: A

   The correct answer is principle.

   Commission paid to a sales manager is an expense, so the proper entry is Debit Commission account ₦5,000 and Credit Cash/Bank ₦5,000. What the bookkeeper actually did was debit the Debtors account — and debtors is a personal (asset) account, not a nominal expense account.

6. 6.

   The following are causes of discrepancies between the cash book and the bank statement balances except

   1. A
      Standing orders paid by the bank on behalf of the customer
   2. B
      Bank charges and commission debited by the bank
   3. C
      Wages paid in cash from the office float
      Correct
   4. D
      Unpresented cheques issued to suppliers
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   Answer: C

   The question uses the word except, so you are looking for the one item that can never make the cash book balance disagree with the bank statement balance.

   A discrepancy arises only from transactions that pass through the bank account but are recorded by the trader and the bank at different times, or by one of them only. Wages paid in cash from the office float never touches the bank at all. It is posted to the cash column of the cash book, and the bank has no record of it because no money left the bank account. Since it affects neither the bank column of the cash book nor the bank statement, it cannot cause any difference between the two balances. That is the exception.

7. 7.

   An amount paid in cash to John is Dr to John and Cr to

   1. A
      Cash account
      Correct
   2. B
      Purchases account
   3. C
      Capital account
   4. D
      Bank account
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   Answer: A

   Every transaction has two sides. Here money is paid in cash to John, so ask yourself two simple questions: who receives, and what goes out?

   John receives the money, so his personal account is debited — the stem has already given you that side ("Dr to John"). The value left the business through the cash box, so the account that gave is the Cash account, and it is credited. This follows the rules: debit the receiver, credit the giver for personal accounts, and debit what comes in, credit what goes out for real accounts.

   So the complete entry is: Dr John, Cr Cash.

8. 8.

   The opening stock at the beginning of an accounting period represents

   1. A
      the total goods available for sale during the accounting period
   2. B
      goods bought at the commencement of the current accounting period
   3. C
      the closing stock carried forward from the previous accounting period
      Correct
   4. D
      the goods left unsold at the end of the current accounting period
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   Answer: C

   Stock does not vanish when we rule off the books at year end. The goods a trader has not sold by the last day of a period are valued as closing stock, credited to the trading account and carried down on the stock account. On the very first day of the new period that same balance is brought down and charged to the new trading account. So the opening stock is simply the closing stock carried forward from the previous accounting period.

   Remember the formula:
   Cost of goods sold = Opening stock + Net purchases − Closing stock

9. 9.

   Which of the following is a function of the operating system of a computer?

   1. A
      Allocating memory and other resources to running programs
      Correct
   2. B
      Protecting stored data from power surges and voltage fluctuation
   3. C
      Translating high-level language programs into machine language
   4. D
      Preparing the payroll and final accounts of a business
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   Answer: A

   The operating system (Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and the rest) is the system software that sits between the user and the hardware and manages the machine for you. Its recognised functions are:

   1. Memory management — sharing out and recovering memory
   2. Job/process scheduling — deciding which task runs and when
   3. File management — saving, naming, retrieving and deleting files
   4. Input/output and device control — driving the keyboard, printer, disk
   5. Resource allocation and security — controlling access to the system

   So allocating memory and other resources to running programs is exactly what the operating system does, and that is the answer.

10. 10.

    When shares are over-subscribed, directors may decide to scale down the number of shareholding by alloting shares at ___

    1. A
       pro rata to the applicants
       Correct
    2. B
       a discount on the issue price
    3. C
       par to a few selected applicants
    4. D
       a premium above the nominal value
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    Answer: A

    Shares are said to be over-subscribed when the applications received from the public are more than the number of shares the company offered. The directors cannot give everybody the full number applied for, so they may scale down the holdings — that is, allot each applicant a smaller number of shares in the same proportion that the available shares bear to the shares applied for. This proportionate allotment is exactly what is meant by allotting shares pro rata to the applicants.

The questions come from past JAMB, WAEC and NECO papers. We use software to help write the answer options and explanations, and every answer is checked twice before it goes on the site. How we check

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