By DANIEL LIBERTO

编写人：DANIEL LIBERTO

What are Total Liabilities?

什么是负债总额？

Total liabilities are the combined debts and obligations that an individual or company owes to outside parties. All assets of a company are either owned by the entity and classified as equity or are subject to future obligations and recorded as a liability. On the balance sheet, total liabilities plus equity must equal total assets.

负债总额指个人或公司所欠外部主体的债务总和。对于公司的所有资产而言，由公司所有的，归类为权益；属于未来债务的，记为负债。在资产负债表上，负债总额加权益必须等于资产总计。

Understanding Total Liabilities

了解负债总额

Liabilities can be described as an obligation between one party and another that has not yet been completed or paid for. They are settled over time through the transfer of economic benefits, including money, goods, or services.

负债指一方与另一方之间尚未结束或偿还的债务。经过一段时间，通过转让经济利益（包括货币、货物或服务）清算。

Liabilities consist of many items ranging from monthly lease payments, to utility bills, bonds issued to investors and corporate credit card debt. Money received by an individual or company for a service or product that has yet to be provided or delivered, otherwise known as unearned revenue, is also recorded as a liability because the revenue has still not been earned and represents products or services owed to a customer. 

负债包括月付租赁租金、物业账单、向投资者发行的债券、公司信用卡债务等项目。个人或公司尚未向客户提供或交付服务或产品之前已经收到的款项，即预收收入，也记作负债，因为收入尚未实现，代表欠客户的产品或服务。

Future pay-outs on things such as pending lawsuits and product warranties must be listed as liabilities, too, if the contingency is likely and the amount can be reasonably estimated. These are referred to as contingent liabilities. 

若可能发生不确定事件，且金额能够合理估计，待决诉讼和产品质量保证也必须列为负债。这些被称作或有负债。

KEY TAKEAWAYS

关键要点

· Total liabilities are the combined debts that an individual or company owes. 

· 负债总额是个人或公司所欠债务的总和。

· They are generally broken down into three categories: short-term, long-term, and other liabilities.

· 通常分为三类：短期负债、长期负债和其他负债。

· On the balance sheet, total liabilities plus equity must equal total assets.

· 在资产负债表上，负债总额加权益必须等于资产总计。

Types of Liabilities

负债类型

On the balance sheet, a company's total liabilities are generally split up into three categories: short-term, long-term, and other liabilities. Total liabilities are calculated by summing all short-term and long-term liabilities, along with any off-balance sheet liabilities that corporations may incur.

在资产负债表上，公司的负债总额通常分为三类：短期负债、长期负债和其他负债。负债总额即所有短期负债和长期负债之和，连同公司可能遭受的任何资产负债表外负债。

Short-term liabilities

短期负债

Short-term, or current liabilities, are liabilities that are due within one year or less. They can include payroll expenses, rent, and accounts payable (AP), money owed by a company to its customers.

短期负债或流动负债，即一年或更短期间内到期的债务。其中包括工资支出、租金和应付账款（公司欠客户的账款）。

Because payment is due within a year, investors and analysts are keen to ascertain that a company has enough cash on its books to cover its short-term liabilities.

由于款项在一年内到期，投资者和分析师急需确定公司账上有足够的现金偿还其短期负债。

Long-term liabilities

长期负债 

Long-term liabilities, or noncurrent liabilities, are debts and other non-debt financial obligations with a maturity beyond one year. They can include debentures, loans, deferred tax liabilities, and pension obligations.

长期负债或非流动负债，即偿还期超过一年的债务及其他非债务性金融义务。其中包括公司债券、贷款、递延所得税负债和养老金负债。

Less liquidity is required to pay for long-term liabilities as these obligations are due over a longer timeframe. Investors and analysts generally expect them to be settled with assets derived from future earnings or financing transactions. One year is generally enough time to turn inventory into cash.

偿还长期负债所需的流动性较小，因为这些债务的偿还期更长。投资者和分析师通常期望通过未来收益或融资业务的资产清算。一般来说，一年足以将存货变为现金。

Other liabilities

其他负债

When something in financial statements is referred to as “other” it typically means that it is unusual, does not fit into major categories and is considered to be relatively minor. In the case of liabilities, the “other” tag can refer to things like intercompany borrowings and sales taxes.

财务报表上的“其他”通常指特殊项目，不适宜纳入其他主要类别，相对来说类别比较小。其他负债可以指公司内部借款和营业税等。

Investors can discover what a company’s other liabilities are by checking out the footnotes in its financial statements.

投资者能够通过查看财务报表附注识别公司的其他负债。

Advantages of Total Liabilities

负债总额的优点

In isolation, total liabilities serve little purpose, other than to potentially compare how a company’s obligations stack up against a competitor operating in the same sector.

孤立起来看，负债总额几乎不起任何作用，除了潜在地比较公司与同行业竞争对手的债务。

However, when used with other figures, total liabilities can be a useful metric for analyzing a company's operations. One example is in an entity's debt-to-equity ratio. Used to evaluate a company's financial leverage, this ratio reflects the ability of shareholder equity to cover all outstanding debts in the event of a business downturn. A similar ratio called debt-to-assets compares total liabilities to total assets to show how assets are financed.

但是，和其他数据一起，负债总额可以很好地用来分析公司的运营状况。其中一个指标是公司的负债与权益比率。该比率用来评估公司的财务杠杆，反映的是股东权益在企业低迷的情况下偿还全部未偿还债务的能力。与此类似的是负债与资产比率，即将负债总额与资产总额进行比较，以表明资产的融资方式。

Special Considerations

注意事项

A larger amount of total liabilities is not in-and-of-itself a financial indicator of poor economic quality of an entity. Based on prevailing interest rates available to the company, it may be most favorable for the business to acquire debt assets by incurring liabilities. 

就本身而言，大多数负债总额并不是判定公司经济质量不佳的财务指标。基于公司的现行利率，通过负债获得抵债资产对公司来说是最有利的。

However, the total liabilities of a business have a direct relationship with the creditworthiness of an entity. In general, if a company has relatively low total liabilities, it may gain favorable interest rates on any new debt it undertakes from lenders, as lower total liabilities lessen the chance of default risk.

但是，公司的负债总额与信誉有直接关系。通常来说，若公司的负债总额相对较少，任何新贷款项的利率都可能更优惠，因为负债总额越少，违约风险越小。