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.

	Debtors	Creditors
	Small or insignificant volume of credit sales should be sold to a customer to account for sundry debtors	Small or insignificant volume of credit purchases should be bought from a supplier to account for sundry creditors.
	It is an account receivable.	It is an account payable.
	Assets	Liabilities
	Term ‘debere’ of Latin language which means ‘to owe’.	Term ‘creditum’ of Latin language which means ‘to loan’.
	Created on debtors	Not created on creditors.
	Sundry debtors are customers who have made infrequent credit purchases in small amounts and owe funds to the company.	Sundry creditors are suppliers who have sold goods in small quantities to the company on credit.