An assignor is the borrowing company that pledges its own accounts receivable as collateral to a lender in exchange for financing. In a receivables-assignment arrangement that creates assigned accounts receivable, the assignor is the party seeking the loan, and the lending institution on the other side of the deal is the assignee.
What the assignor keeps and gives up
The assignor retains legal ownership of its receivables throughout the arrangement and continues collecting payments from its own customers in the normal course of business; what it gives up is the ability to treat those receivables as entirely unencumbered, since the assignee now holds a secured claim against them if the loan is not repaid. This is why the arrangement is disclosed in the notes to the assignor's financial statements, even though the receivables remain on its own balance sheet rather than being removed the way a sale would require.
Where to go for the full explanation
See assigned accounts receivable for a complete explanation of how this secured borrowing arrangement works, how it differs from selling receivables outright through factoring, and what the assignor typically still bears in terms of ongoing credit risk on its own customers.