A Balance sheet Hattingen is a financial document that shows what a company owns (assets), what it owes (liabilities) and what the company’s investors have invested in it (shareholder’s equity). The balance sheet provides a snapshot of the company’s financial position at one point in time. It can be compared to other similar companies’ balance sheets to evaluate performance and competitiveness. Investors use the document to review net worth, risk and ability to pay debt and dividends. It is also used by lenders to assess loan request.
The balance sheet has three primary sections: assets, liabilities and shareholders’ equity. The asset section shows what a company owns, starting with cash and other liquid assets at the top of the list. Next are other assets that can quickly be turned into cash like accounts receivable and inventory. Then there are other assets that require longer-term investment such as property and equipment. The final section of the assets is depreciation expense that reduces the value of these investments over their useful lives.
Liabilities show the amount a company owes to others at any given moment, including short-term obligations such as accounts payable and wages payable, as well as long-term debt and other liabilities. These include loan repayments, fixed-income securities issued to investors and deferred tax liabilities, which result from temporary differences between income reported for tax purposes and income reported for financial statement reporting. Shareholders’ equity includes contributed capital, preferred shares and treasury stock as well as retained earnings and accumulated other comprehensive income. This section of the balance sheet can be compared to previous reports to see changes in shareholder’s equity over time.
A company’s balance sheet is only as accurate as the data that goes into it. Different accounting systems and ways of handling things like depreciation can change the number posted in the balance sheet. This can lead to manipulation of the numbers to make a company look more profitable than it really is. For this reason, many analysts only use the balance sheet in conjunction with other financial statements such as the income statement and the statement of cash flows. These other statements are more dynamic and can paint a more complete picture of a company’s current and future cash flow. They can also be used to calculate financial ratios such as the debt-to-equity ratio. These ratios can help determine if a company is overly leveraged and at risk of defaulting on its debt. They can also be used to predict future revenue and profitability trends. The more accurate the information in a balance sheet, the more useful it will be. Bilanz Hattingen