Special Uses
Companies can use their accounts receivable as collateral when obtaining a loan (asset-based lending). They may also sell them through factoring or on an exchange. Pools or portfolios of accounts receivable can be sold in capital markets through securitization.
For tax reporting purposes, a general provision for bad debts is not an allowable deduction from profit - a business can only get relief for specific debtors that have gone bad. However, for financial reporting purposes, companies may choose to have a general provision against bad debts consistent with their past experience of customer payments, in order to avoid over-stating debtors in the balance sheet.
Read more about this topic: Accounts Receivable
Famous quotes containing the word special:
“A successful woman preacher was once asked “what special obstacles have you met as a woman in the ministry?” “Not one,” she answered, “except the lack of a minister’s wife.””
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“Here in the U.S., culture is not that delicious panacea which we Europeans consume in a sacramental mental space and which has its own special columns in the newspapers—and in people’s minds. Culture is space, speed, cinema, technology. This culture is authentic, if anything can be said to be authentic.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)