A business has the following balances at the beginning of the year:

Accounts receivable: $165000$

Allowance for doubtful accounts: $-24750$

The following summary transactions occurred during the year.

Sales for the year, $100\%$ on credit: $310000$

Cash collected on accounts receivable for the year: $308700$

Write$-$offs of uncollectable accounts receivable: $19800$

Received a cheque from a customer whose account was previously written off: $1980$

Overall rate used to estimate the allowance for doubtful accounts at year end: $10\%$

Using the information above, answer the following questions. Enter the digits only $-$ no dollar signs, commas, or decimal points. IMPORTANT $-$ enter your answer to the second question $($the balance in the allowance$)$ as a NEGATIVE number, with a minus sign $(-)$ in front of the digits.