Balance Sheet – Liabilities and Stockholders’ Equity

Obligations of a company or organization. Amounts owed to lenders and suppliers. Liabilities often have the word “payable” in the account title. Liabilities also include amounts received in advance for a future sale or for a future service to be performed. To learn more, see Explanation of Balance Sheet.

The amount of principal due on a formal written promise to pay. Loans from banks are included in this account.

This current liability account reports the amount of interest the company owes as of the date of the balance sheet. (Future interest is not recorded as a liability.)

This current liability account will show the amount a company owes for items or services purchased on credit and for which there was not a promissory note. This account is often referred to as trade payables (as opposed to notes payable, interest payable, etc.)

To learn more about accounts payable, see our Accounts Payable Outline.

A current liability account that reports the amounts owed to employees for hours worked but not yet paid as of the date of the balance sheet.

A current asset account which includes currency, coins, checking accounts, and undeposited checks received from customers. The amounts must be unrestricted. (Restricted cash should be recorded in a different account.)

A liability account that reports amounts received in advance of providing goods or services. When the goods or services are provided, this account balance is decreased and a revenue account is increased. To learn more, see Explanation of Adjusting Entries.

A balance sheet liability account that reports amounts received in advance of being earned. For example, if a company receives $10,000 today to perform services in the next accounting period, the $10,000 is unearned in this accounting period. It is deferred to the next accounting period by crediting a liability account such as Unearned Revenues. Next period (when it is earned) a journal entry will be made to debit the liability account and to credit a revenue account.

A liability account on the books of a company receiving cash in advance of delivering goods or services to the customer. The entry on the books of the company at the time the money is received in advance is a debit to Cash and a credit to Customer Deposits.

Under the accrual basis of accounting, the Service Revenues account reports the fees earned by a company during the time period indicated in the heading of the income statement. Service Revenues include work completed whether or not it was billed. Service Revenues is an operating revenue account and will appear at the beginning of the company’s income statement.

The type of stock that is present at every corporation. (Some corporations have preferred stock in addition to their common stock.) Shares of common stock provide evidence of ownership in a corporation. Holders of common stock elect the corporation’s directors and share in the distribution of profits of the company via dividends. If the corporation were to liquidate, the secured lenders would be paid first, followed by unsecured lenders, preferred stockholders (if any), and lastly the common stockholders.

The stockholders’ equity account that represents the amount paid to a corporation for its common stock that was in excess of the common stock’s par value. This account is sometimes referred to as the premium on common stock (The par value of common stock is recorded in a separate stockholder’s equity account.)

A class of corporation stock that provides for preferential treatment over the holders of common stock in the case of liquidation and dividends. For example, the preferred stockholders will be paid dividends before the common stockholders receive dividends. In exchange for the preferential treatment of dividends, preferred shareholders usually will not share in the corporation’s increasing earnings and instead receive only their fixed dividend.

A stockholders’ equity account that generally reports the net income of a corporation from its inception until the balance sheet date less the dividends declared from its inception to the date of the balance sheet.

A separate line within stockholders’ equity that reports the corporation’s cumulative income that has not been reported as part of net income on the corporation’s income statement. The items that would be included in this line involve the income or loss involving foreign currency transactions, hedges, and pension liabilities.

A corporation’s own stock that has been repurchased from stockholders. Also a stockholders’ equity account that usually reports the cost of the stock that has been repurchased.

Often this account appears as a line in the retained earnings section of stockholders’ equity (balance sheet) and will show the year-to-date net income. The reason is that some accounting software will not put the current year’s net income into the Retained Earnings account until the accounting year is finished.