Financial Statements 1
Financial Statements
ACC 280
Emily Roddy
Financial Statements 2
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to define accounting, and identify the four basic financial statements. The paper also explains how the different financial statements are interrelated to each other and why they are useful to managers, investors, creditors, and employees.
Accounting
Accounting is a business discipline that allows companies to record, analyze, and retrieve critical financial information that can be used to determine a company 's financial status. Its purpose is to help people understand what is going on financially within an organization provide reports and insights needed to make sound financial decisions.
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(Ohara, 2007) Most financial statements are made public for the benefit of stakeholders and potential investors. The bottom-line is that financial statements are the main source for analyzing how well a company is operating. The income (or profit and loss) statement is simply a report card of how much activity (revenue) was performed in the period, how profitable that activity was (gross profit/loss), and what it cost the contractor to run the business (overhead). (Murphy, 2006)
How Financial Statements are interrelated
Financial statements are interrelated. It is so because the financial position of a business changes after each session of good or bad financial performance. Until we measure both financial performance and position, we cannot predict the cash flow position of the business.
A change in one statement would affect the others. It is concluded the financial statements do have an interrelationship with each other and they must be understood with their interrelationship in order to be properly interpreted. The order should be to first the income statement, then the balance sheet, Retained Earnings Statement and finally the Statement of Cash Flows.
Financial Statements 5
Conclusion
Some individuals assume that the usefulness of financial statements is to predict the future of a business with data from the past. Sometimes this can be true in respect for trends that have continued for many years, for at least the near future. The fact is financial
Accounting is commonly described as the language of business. It is very important for all business owners to have very good understanding of their finances. Having the knowledge of your business finance, you will know where the money is going. Every business owner should have a good understanding of finance. To have a good understanding business owners needs to understand basic accounting steeps, how does accounting play a role in their business, how to define a financial statement and how the omission of any of these steps would affect the success of a business. Once you have an understanding of accounting/finance and the how it plays
In accounting there is much to be learned, about the financial aspects of a business. In the past five weeks I have learned the importance of financial reports and how they relate to the success of an establishment. These reports may include balance sheets and income statements, which help accountants and the public grasp the overall financial condition of a company. The information in these reports is really significant to, managers, owners, employees, and investors. Managers of a business can take and deduce financial
Understanding the finances of a company is important but knowing the significance of the financial statements is crucial to the operations as well. Reviewing the statement of financial position, operating statement and statement of cash flows serve as a guidance to management and executives on the day-to-day activities of an organization (Finkler et al., 2013). For example, the statement of financial position (balance sheet) shows the assets and
Financial statements of the company are significant for the investors who would like to venture into the business operation. It gives them the insight whether the business is making profits or it is doomed to fail;
Assess the degree to which the firm’s accounting reflects the underlying business reality. Identify accounting distortions and evaluate their impact on profits and the sustainability of profits.
Financial statements provide financial decision makers with varied information presented in specific formats that is easily attainable tools to evaluate financial health. Three of the necessary financial statements are the statement of financial position or the balance sheet, operating statement also called income statement, and the statement of cash flows (Finkler, Jones, and Kovner, 2013).
In this paper I will identify the four basic financial statements, discuss how they are interrelated with each other, and why they are useful to managers, investors, creditors, and employees.
Separately, the balance sheet reports a company’s financial position while the income statement reports a company’s fiscal year profits and losses. The balance sheet measures a company’s financial position by reporting its assets, liabilities, and owner’s (shareholder’s) equity. The income statement measures a company’s financial performance by reporting its revenues, expenses, and net income/loss. When combined, they serve two vital purposes: (1) expand the accounting equation and (2) enable analysis using ratios to determine industry position or potential material misstatements. The increase or decrease in owner’s (shareholder’s) equity on the balance sheet is a direct result of the net
Financial accounting statements can help a user to make future decisions by showing the concerned business’s health. It shows where money is being generated, spent and lost, depicting the financial performance and financial position. The statements can also help in situations such as raising fresh capital in the form of a loan, e.g. a bank will most likely require these statements to show the business’s credibility or worthiness. The statements help influence managerial decisions on which direction the business needs to head, and how to best maximize profit.
investors, auditors, executives of the business, etc.) an overview of the financial results and condition of the company. The major financial statements that come out of the accounting cycle are income statements, balance sheets, Statement of cash flows and Statement of retained earnings. Income statements are considered the most important of all the financial statements since it presents the operating results of an entity , e.g. revenues, expenses, and profits/losses generated during the reporting period (Bragg, 2017). Balance sheets provide reports of assets, liabilities, and equity of the entity as of the reporting date and can be considered the second most important statement because it provides information/figures about the liquidity, as well as the capitalization of a company (Bragg, 2017). Statement of cash flows exhibits the cash inflows and outflows that occur during a reporting period, which provides a useful comparison to the income statement, particularly when the amount of profit or loss reported does not reflect cash flows encountered by the businesses (Bragg, 2017). Statement of retained earnings is the least used financial statement that provides information regarding changes in equity during the reporting period and can include information such as: sale or repurchase of stock, dividend payments, and changes caused by reported profits or losses. Statements of retained earnings are often
The “financial statements are formal reports providing information on a company's financial position, cash inflows and outflows, and the results of operations” (Hermanson, p.22). There are four main components that make up a financial statement. The four parts are, balance sheet, income statements, cash flow and, statement of owner’s equity. The balance sheets role is to define the company’s assets liabilities and revenue of the business. The income statement shows the income within the company. Cash flow reviews the position of the company by cash payments and receipts. Lastly, the statement of owner’s equity shows the amount of earnings, stock and other capitals of people in the company. (Hermanson, p.34-35).
Each user of the financial statements interprets the information in a different manor. They use the information to determine their interactions with the organization. Management, investors, and employees use the same information from the financial statements but for different purposes. These four basic statements are the fundamentals of accounting which can be much more detail and complex. They do not need to be more complex for the users of the information; these basic statements have all the information needed to make
This essay will begin to look at the main financial statements used by decision makers in businesses today. This essay will go into detail about the income statement and statement of financial position and whether these two statements provide decision makers with their financial information adequately. This essay will also include the various advantages and disadvantages of each financial statement as well as describing whom the decision makers are and why financial statements are important to them. A conclusion will be present at the end of this essay to demonstrate an overall view of whether financial statements are beneficial to decision makers.
have explained that the Financial statements provide asummarized view of the financial position and operations of a firm. Therefore, much can belearnt about a firm from a careful examination of its financial statements as invaluabledocuments / performance reports. The analysis of financial statements is, thus, an important aidto financial analysis.
Since the three statements offer three different kinds of information, sometimes it is useful to look at each in the context of the others, and to look at specific items in the larger context. This is the purpose of financial statement analysis: creating comparisons and contexts to gain a better understanding of