when do accrued liabilities occur 
accrued liabilities arise for a number of reasons or when events occur during the normal course of business for instance at the end of a calendar year employee salaries and benefits must be recorded in the appropriate year regardless of when the pay period ends and when paychecks are distributed for example a two week pay period may extend from dec 25 to jan 7 although they aren t distributed until january there is still one full week of expenses for december the salaries benefits and taxes incurred from dec 25 to dec 31 are deemed accrued liabilities these expenses are debited to reflect an increase in the expenses meanwhile various liabilities will be credited to report the increase in obligations at the end of the year payroll taxes including social security medicare and federal unemployment taxes are liabilities that can be accrued periodically in preparation for payment before the taxes are due accrued liability vs accounts payable ap accrued liabilities and accounts payable ap are both types of liabilities that companies need to pay but there is a difference between the two accrued liabilities are for expenses that have not yet been billed either because they are a regular expense that doesn t require a bill e g payroll or because the company hasn t yet received a bill from the vendor e g a utility bill as such accounts payable or payables are generally short term obligations and must be paid within a certain amount of time creditors send invoices or bills which are documented by the receiving company s ap department the department then issues the payment for the total amount by the due date 4 paying off these expenses during the specified time helps companies avoid default examples of accrued liabilitiesas noted above companies can accrue liabilities for many different reasons as such there are many different kinds of expenses that fall under this category the following are some of the most common examples 