Final answer:
Advances to employees and deposits with utilities are examples of nontrade receivables, which are a type of asset not tied to a company's main business operations. On a personal balance sheet, bank deposits are assets and loans are liabilities. On a bank's balance sheet, the opposite is true, and bonds held by a bank are also considered assets.
Step-by-step explanation:
Advances to employees and deposits with utilities are examples of nontrade receivables. Nontrade receivables are amounts due to the company that are not related to the company's main business operations or sales of goods and services. This distinguishes them from trade receivables, which are amounts owed to a company by its customers as a result of the ordinary extension of credit. In your personal balance sheet, you would characterize bank deposits as assets because they represent money that the bank owes you. Conversely, loans you have taken from a bank are liabilities as they are obligations you are required to repay in the future.
When considering a bank's balance sheet, the roles are reversed: the bank views deposits it holds as liabilities because they represent money the bank owes to depositors, and loans that the bank has made are considered assets because they generate interest income and are expected to be repaid by borrowers. Similarly, bonds purchased by a bank are categorized as assets. In particular, government bonds are considered low-risk assets since repayment by the government is virtually guaranteed, though typically with a lower rate of interest.