Detail at the categories in the basic accounting equation

Assets, Liabilities & Owner’s Equity

Let’s look in more detail at the categories in the basic accounting equation.

Assets

As noted above, assets are resources a business owns. The business uses its assets in carrying out such activities as production and sales. The common characteristic possessed by all assets is the capacity to provide future services or benefits. In a business, that service potential or future economic benefit eventually results in cash inflows (receipts). For example, Campus Pizza owns a delivery truck that provides economic benefits from delivering pizzas. Other assets of Campus Pizza are tables, chairs, jukebox, cash register, oven, tableware, and, of course, cash.

Liabilities

Liabilities are claims against assets—that is, existing debts and obligations. Businesses of all sizes usually borrow money and purchase merchandise on credit. These economic activities result in payables of various sorts:

• Campus Pizza, for instance, purchases cheese, sausage, flour, and beverages on credit from suppliers. These obligations are called accounts payable.

• Campus Pizza also has a note payable to First National Bank for the money borrowed to purchase the delivery truck.

• Campus Pizza may also have salaries and wages payable to employees and sales and real estate taxes payable to the local government.

All of these persons or entities to whom Campus Pizza owes money are its creditors. Creditors may legally force the liquidation of a business that does not pay its debts. In that case, the law requires that creditor claims be paid before ownership claims.

Owner’s Equity

The ownership claim on total assets is owner’s equity. It is equal to total assets minus total liabilities. Here is why: The assets of a business are claimed by either creditors or owners. To find out what belongs to owners, we subtract the creditors’ claims (the liabilities) from assets. The remainder is the owner’s claim on the assets—the owner’s equity. Since the claims of creditors must be paid before ownership claims,

owner’s equity is often referred to as residual equity.