Real-world example of current liabilities
As a real-world example, let's consider the balance sheet of Walt Disney (DIS -0.57%). There are three types of current liabilities listed:
- Accounts payable -- $19.115 billion
- Short-term debts -- $2.645 billion
- Other current liabilities -- $6.474 billion
- Total -- $28.234 billion
There's not a ton to take away from this information all by itself. Just by looking at current liabilities, it's tough to figure out if a business is financially healthy or not. However, a metric like the current ratio can help us. On the same balance sheet, we can see that Disney has $30.174 billion in current assets, including about $11.5 billion in cash and $13.1 billion in receivables. Dividing the current assets by current liabilities shows a current ratio of approximately 1.07. This is greater than 1, so it indicates that Disney's financial condition is solid, at least on a near-term basis.