Off-balance sheet liabilities are basically called off-balance sheet financing.

First, the main ways of off-balance sheet financing of enterprises

1. lease. Leasing is a traditional off-balance sheet financing method. Because leasing is divided into operating leasing and financing leasing, only operating leasing can be regarded as a reasonable and legal off-balance sheet financing method. Therefore, the lessee will often rack his brains to conclude a lease agreement with the lessor and try his best to avoid it, so that the contract that is essentially a financial lease is treated as an operating lease for accounting purposes in order to obtain the benefits of off-balance sheet financing.

2. Joint ventures. A joint venture refers to a mode of operation in which an enterprise holds a considerable number of other enterprises, but does not reach the holding level. The latter is called an unincorporated enterprise. By arranging the investment structure and engaging in off-balance-sheet business in non-corporate enterprises, people can get the benefits of full holding as much as possible, without involving merger, and there is no need to reflect the debts of non-corporate enterprises on the balance sheet. There is also a more popular form called Special Purpose Entity (SPE), that is, enterprises set up new enterprises as sponsors, which are called special purpose entities, and their business activities basically serve the interests of sponsors. Generally speaking, SPE's liabilities are quite high, and the lower the owner's equity, the better. Although the sponsors have little or no ownership interest, they bear all the risks. It is by using SPE that Enron overestimated its profits of $59.65438+0.997 ~ 2,000 and concealed its liabilities of $2.585 billion.

3. Asset securitization. Asset securitization refers to the process of transforming assets that lack liquidity but can generate predictable and stable cash flow into securities that can be sold and circulated in the financial market through certain structural arrangements. Securitization financing business is usually the business of securitizing financial assets such as credit assets of banks, transactions or service receivables of enterprises. For example, the sale of accounts receivable with recourse is essentially a loan secured by accounts receivable, but in the current accounting practice, enterprises transfer the sold accounts receivable as assets without recognizing liabilities. As an effective off-balance-sheet financing method, securitization is very popular in the United States in recent years, and it has developed in the types and values of securitized financial assets. One of Enron's ways to "revitalize" assets is the securitization of energy commodities.

4. Innovative financial instruments. At present, it is a big outbreak of innovative financial instruments, including swaps, embedded options, compound options, upper limit options, lower limit options, upper and lower winning rights and so on. Due to the rapid change of environment, the need of risk control, the intensification of competition, and the development of analytical technology and information technology, this trend is increasing and will continue. However, the formulation of accounting standards has not kept pace with the development of innovative financial instruments. Therefore, according to the current accounting standards, most innovative financial instruments are not reflected in the financial statements, and the liabilities arising from financing through innovative financial instruments will naturally not be reflected in the balance sheet. Enron was rated as "the most innovative company" by Fortune magazine 1995, and its innovative achievements are mainly the "creative use" of financial instruments, such as futures, options and other derivative financial instruments that open up energy commodities.

In addition, consignment, processing with supplied materials, product financing agreement and bill receivable discount are also common off-balance sheet financing methods.