Accounts receivable and Accounts payable are used to show and record a future transaction. If you receive a bill in the mail, but have not yet paid the bill, for example, you would enter the item into your Accounts payable account. When you do pay the bill you would use the Pay Bills function in Accounted. This function shows a list of all items in all Accounts Payable accounts.

The same is true for Accounts receivable. If you send out an invoice or someone owes you money, you can enter the item into your Accounts receivable and then later receive the item when the payment actually comes in.

This setup is used by many companies but is not required by Accounted. It is up to each user whether or not they'd like to use Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable.

Wikipedia Article on Accounts Payable: Link
Wikipedia Article on Accounts Receivable: Link

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