One is self-financing and the other is social financing. Self-raised funds: including their own savings or loans from relatives and friends. Social financing: by providing high-value fixed collateral, lending to financial institutions such as banks, or borrowing from informal financial institutions through acquaintances or networks, the latter has higher interest rates and greater risks than the former.

The source of funds is the symmetry of "the use of funds". Refers to enterprises, organs, institutions or other economic organizations from certain channels to obtain or form their own sources of funds. Such as funds allocated by industrial enterprises and the state, bank loans, purchase funds payable, special funds, etc. In order to reflect and supervise the increase, decrease, change and balance of various sources of funds, a series of source accounts should be set up, and the balance of source accounts on a certain date should be included in the sources of funds in the balance sheet according to the specified items. In practical work, the source of funds is sometimes called "debt". It is divided into three categories: self-owned funds, absorbed funds and special funds. Self-owned funds include funds invested by the state finance (state funds) and funds formed within enterprises (enterprise funds). Absorbed funds, also known as "borrowed funds", mainly include loans from enterprises to national banks and unpaid accounts payable at the time of settlement. Special funds refer to funds with special purposes other than working capital.

Some sources of special funds are extracted by enterprises themselves according to regulations, and some are allocated by the state finance or higher authorities. Enterprises with different ownership and business nature have different sources and compositions of funds. Own funds are the symmetry of "borrowed funds". Funds that are often held by enterprises for production and business activities and can be disposed of by themselves without repayment. The self-owned funds of private enterprises in the west mainly come from shareholders' investment and undistributed profits of enterprises. Under the socialist system, the self-owned funds of enterprises owned by the whole people are mainly state financial allocations and internal accumulation of enterprises. In addition, in the process of production and operation, due to objective reasons such as settlement time, the fixed liabilities such as taxes payable, profits payable and accrued expenses also participate in the turnover as the company's own liquidity. The self-owned funds of collective enterprises are mainly shares, provident fund, public welfare fund and other special funds.