Accounts receivable is the first step in a series of collection attempts dealing with the billing of customers who owe money to a consumer, business or an organization for products and/or services that have been provided to the customer. This is sometimes done in a small organization by writing an invoice and sending via mail, fax or email.

On an organization's balance sheet, accounts receivable is the amount that customers owe to the business. Also known as AR, they are classified as current assets. To record a journal entry for a sale on account, you must debit a receivable and credit a revenue account. When the customer pays off the account, you debit cash and credit the receivable in the journal entry. The ending balance on the trial balance sheet for accounts receivable is always debit.

Companies that have become too big to perform this task by hand (even smaller companies that could but prefer not to do them by hand) will generally use accounting software on a computer to perform this task.

Associated accounting issues include recognizing accounts receivable, valuing accounts receivable, and disposing of accounts receivable.

Some additional types of accounting transactions include accounts payable, payroll and trial balance.

Since not all customer AR will be collected by the Accounts Receivable person, companies typically record an allowance for bad debts which is subtracted from total accounts receivable. Many debtors just won't pay the AR; in those cases, smart creditors turn to a collection agency.