Accounts Receivable

Accounts Receivable: Outstanding billings owed by customers for goods and services received. If your company has outstanding billings to their customer after they make a sale and ship the product to their customer this is the total amount that is owed to the company at the given period in time

Example: If a restaurant that receives payment for the food right after the product is consumed, they have no receivables. But if the restaurant has  a catering service, clients may not pay on the date of delivery of the food but some time later creating a receivable.