With off-balance sheet accounting, a company didn't have to include certain assets and liabilities in its balance sheet -- it was "off-sheet" and therefore not part of their financial statements. We'll talk more later about how the Sarbanes-Oxley Act changed this practice. While there are legitimate reasons for off-balance-sheet accounting, it is often used to make a company look like it has far less debt than it actually does. Some types of off-balance-sheet accounting move debt to a newly created company specifically for that purpose, which was the case with Enron. These are called special purpose entities (SPEs) and are also known as variable interest entities (VIEs).
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An accounting technique in which a debt for which a company is obligated does not appear on the company's balance sheet as a liability. Keeping debt off the balance sheet allows a company to appear more creditworthy but misrepresents the firm's financial structure to creditors, shareholders, and the public. The sudden collapse of energy-trading giant Enron Corporation is attributed in large part to the firm's off-balance-sheet financing through multiple partnerships.
A type of company financing that does not appear as a liability on the company's balance sheet. A company may engage in off-balance-sheet financing if it wishes to keep its debt-equity ratio low and thereby appear as if it is carrying little debt. This, in turn, makes the company look more creditworthy than it would otherwise. A common form of off-balance-sheet financing is an operating lease, in which a company rents, rather than buys, a capital asset. In an operating lease, the company must record only the rental payments, and not the whole cost of the asset. While off-balance-sheet financing is permissible, it can become unsustainable and can hide a company's true financial state. The term came into common parlance when Enron collapsed in the wake of excessive off-balance-sheet financing. See also: Enron scandal.