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).
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.
