What Makes Up Your Financial Reports?

By: Rachel Raupp

Your financial reports tell you everything you need to know about your business - but do you know what they’re saying? Or what all the little pieces mean?

Financial reports are a compilation of all the numbers floating around your company. There’s your Balance Sheet, which supplies you with a detailed look at your company’s financial health at any particular moment in time. It gives you the dollar amount of assets and liabilities in your company’s net worth. This includes fixed assets, inventory, cash, accounts payable and receivable, payroll liabilities, line of credit, and more. The Balance Sheet also tells you the equity in the business.

A Profit and Loss Statement (a.k.a. Income statement) also creates a financial report. This captures sales, costs, and the resulting profits. Its purpose is to show you how much money your business makes or loses over a period of time. Your P & L Statement consists of various factors including net income, operating expenses, gross profit, cost of goods sold, and sales. Although this consists of many variables, it does not capture all cash flows that are happening within your business.

The next component is your Cash Flow Analysis. Your statement will be helpful when you’re trying to figure out why or how something happened. It lists exactly where the company’s cash is coming from and where it is going. This is a very specific report.

It’s best to compare your financial reports to past reports. You may notice trends or areas of concern that you want to keep an eye on. All of the documents that make up your financial reports are intricately woven together; although separate, they work together as one.

On Thursday, August 9 we are hosting a FREE “Know Your Numbers” mini-seminar and welcome you to come by. Check-in will be at 7:45 a.m., followed by an hour of learning exactly what your numbers are telling you! They’re vital, you need to know what they mean!