Salaries Defined

• Salaries are the monies paid out to employees. For an employee, a salary can be a straight cash-for-hours payment as well as things like health insurance benefits and pension investing. Salaries can also be made up of dividend payments. Salaries are generally stated as an annual amount, which means that the employee is paid the same amount each pay period. This differs from wages, which is when an employee is paid an hourly amount and payroll amounts vary depending on number of hours worked.
  
  

Expenses Defined

• The results of efforts to produce revenue, expenses are the costs of items needed to do business. Expenses cause a decrease in assets and in increase in liabilities. Salaries are usually a business expense, since a company has to pay employees to conduct business. Other expenses can include utilities, advertising, building rental, repairs, supplies and travel.
  
  

Payables Defined

• When your business owes money to other companies, such as for product orders, it is considered a payable. Payable accounts are current liabilities that have not yet been paid. All invoices that come into a business accounting office are payables, which means that they are items that the business must pay. Payables are generally for goods and services that the company purchases, with the exception of employee services. An exception to this is if the company employs a consultant for a period who invoices for services.
  
  

Differences

• Payable and expense can actually be a part of salaries, such as the salary expense account and the salary payable account. When making journal entries, payable and expense accounts are commonly used. For example, if you want to expense something in the year before it is actually paid, your debit and credit entries are to expense and payable accounts. The next year when you pay the liability, the debit and credit entries go to payable and cash accounts. However, salaries are not something that you can expense the year before they are paid. Both payables and expenses can appear in the title of numerous liability accounts, such as notes payable, accounts payable, operating expenses and interest expenses. This is not true of salaries, which are only listed as either salaries expense or salaries payable on financial documents.