MEANING AND DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
SUNDRY DEBTORS AND SUNDRY CREDITORS
Sundry Debtors
Debtors or ‘receivables’ are customers who owe funds to the company. They have purchased goods on credit and, payments are yet to be made by them. Sundry debtors, also known as ‘sundry receivables’ refer to a company’s customers who rarely make purchases on credit and the amounts they purchase are not significant. These are usually small-scale customers.
Usually, the company maintains separate ledger accounts to record business transactions for each customer. This is justifiable if the customer purchases in larger volumes at frequent intervals. This may not be justifiable for smaller customers, thus it is more convenient to maintain a single ledger account named ‘sundry debtors’ to record such small scale infrequent transactions.
Sundry Creditors
Creditors or ‘payables’ are customers to which the company owes funds. The company has purchased goods on credit and payments are yet to be made to them. Sundry creditors, also known as ‘sundry payables’ refer to a company’s suppliers from whom the company rarely makes purchases on credit and the amounts purchased from them are not significant. These are usually small-scale suppliers. Just as for debtors, it is not practical to maintain separate ledger accounts for each small-scale infrequent supplier. Thus, these records are maintained collectively in a single account named ‘sundry creditors’.
Difference between Sundry Debtors and Sundry Creditors:
Basis for Comparison | Debtors | Creditors |
Meaning | Debtors are the parties who owes debt towards the company. | Creditors are the parties to whom the company owes a debt. |
What is it? | It is an account receivable. | It is an account payable. |
Status | Assets | Liabilities |
Discount | Allowed to debtors. | Received from creditors. |
Derived from | Term ‘debere’ of Latin language which means ‘to owe’. | Term ‘creditum’ of Latin language which means ‘to loan’. |
Provision for doubtful debts | Created on debtors | Not created on creditors. |