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Importance of financial statements
Importance of financial statements
Importance of financial statements
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Government-wide financial statements are important for us as citizens to find out how one particular state and local governments spend their money (tax revenues). Government- wide financial statements use accounting standard that set by the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB), and those statements can help us to make our own comparisons between publicly funded activities and how well the government is operating currently in the society. There are two financial statements that have to prepare under the government-wide financial statement: statement of net asset and statement of activities.
Statement of Net Assets have two separate columns for Governmental Activities, Business-Type Activities, Totals, and Discretely Presented Component Units.
Separate columns for expenses, program revenues, and net (expense) revenue for Governmental Activities, Business-Type Activities, Totals and Discretely Presented Component Units. The City of Bakersfield government-wide financial statements distinguish between the governmental and business-type activities of the City. Governmental activities that normally are supported by all kind of taxes
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There is a restriction on net asset that is capital improvements of $21,015,837 for governmental activities and $20,209,227 for business type activities, and they have strong, unrestricted net assets for both governmental activities and business type activities of $213,670,245, $109,292,512 respectively. A large part of their net assets are invested in the capital assets for both governmental activities and the business type activities. Under the government wide financial statement, the statement of net position shows that a large portion of the money is used for investment in capital assets such as: land, buildings, equipment, park facilities, roads, highways, bridges and construction in
Any judgment of the internal financing capability of a municipality is, therefore, a judgment on its governance standards. A better governed municipality implies better information availability, better assessment capability and better collection efficiencies that are then reflected in the quantum of revenues generated through internal financial support levers. Consequently, any effort to significantly get better the infrastructure provision scenario in Gimbi town will need to begin by giving a significant push to improving the assessment, enforcement and collection of internal revenue levers (Anand Sahasranaman & Vishnu Prasad, 2014). According to the report of Gimbi town Municipality, annual average revenue is only 5.6 million. This indicates that there is a problem of exhaustively use of the resource and in efficient revenue collection from the identified
This company has a large amount of assets, they total out at about 124,213. They have more assets than actually cash on hand. This company has no short-term debt, the only debt they have is short-term. There is a section called other assets this, has increased by a lot. The fixed assets have increased by a lot in this company.
It provides information about all the accounts in the General Fund and the totals of all other governmental funds. According to the notes on page 144, “in the fiscal year 2010-11, the City implemented GASB 54 under which governmental fund balances are reported as nonspendable, restricted, committed, assigned, and unassigned. For the fiscal year 2009-10 fund balances have been characterized to comply with GASB 54 in order to facilitate year-to year comparisons.” This made the report’s presentation look unusual. Half of the page contains the old account names and the balances from 2005 to 2009. The other half of the page presents the new way of reporting the fund balances and the information for the following years. The last report for this section is the Changes in Fund Balances of Governmental Funds. The change on the presentation of fund balances did not affect the presentation of this report. The major changes that happed the fund balances seem to be a negative ending balance from 2008 to 2011. Most likely due to the
In conducting a financial condition evaluation, Andrew Graham in his text, Canadian Public-Sector Financial Management states that there needs to be "an analysis of the financial status of a government organization based on a financial statement analysis as well as an evaluation of external factors that affect the financial condition of the government, or part thereof, such as the wealth of the population, employment rates, interest rates, service demand, or the general economy" (Graham, pg. 219, 2007). In other words, both internal and external factors, that can influence a government's finances, must be inspected and evaluated in order to
Private and public accounting has long been discussed and disputed in regards to financial reporting. Since the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was created in 1973, accountants have called for different accounting regulations for private and public accounting sectors, as private companies do not have the resources to meet the complex requirements of public companies. Private companies currently are not required by law to issue annual or quarterly financial statements (James, 2012). Private companies do, however, have the option to apply the U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), cash basis, or accrual accounting to their financial statements (James, 2012).
A consolidated financial statement can be defined as the financial statements of a parent and its subsidiaries combined to form a single economic entity (AASB 10, 2011). The entity, which acquires the other entity, is known as the parent and the entity, which has been acquired, is known as the subsidiary. Consolidation financial reports arise when one entity purchases another entity, to then form a group.
According to the conceptual framework, the potential users of financial statements are investors, creditors, suppliers, employees, customers, governments and agencies, and the general public (Financial Accounting Standards Board, 2006). The primary users are investors, creditors, and those who advise them. It goes on to define the criteria that make up each potential user, as well as, the limitations of financial reporting. The FASB explicitly states that financial reporting is “but one source of information needed by those who make investment, credit, and similar resource allocation decisions. Users also need to consider pertinent information from other sources, and be aware of the characteristics and limitations of the information in them” (Financial Accounting Standards Board, 2006). With this in mind, it is still particularly difficult to determine whom the financials should be catered towards and what level of prudence is necessary for quality judgment.
With reference to (Gitman, Joehnk and Billingsley, 2016), personal financial planning is defined as a systematic process that considers the important elements of an individual’s financial affairs and is aimed at fulfilling his or her financial goals. In other words, personal financial planning expounded on the structured procedure of taking significant factors of a person’s finance into account so as to attain the particular results that person wants. This methodical approach encompasses the following six steps known as establishing of personal financial goals, generating a variety of financial plans, executing of the financial plans, developing and implementing budgets, assessing the outcome through financial statements analysis and adopt
Moreover, for the single reporting entity, there is a variety of procedural steps that must be taken and understood in order to ensure the proper accounting. For instance, the starting point for the preparation of consolidated statements begin with the separate financial statements of the companies and after some adjustments and eliminations of amounts they are added together in order to create appropriate consolidated financial statements. Additionally, a few steps that can be taken into account to properly create consolidated financial statements are as follows:
The Purpose of Financial Statements The financial statements of a business are used to provide information about the status of the business, set performance targets and impose restrictions on the managers of the firm as well as provide an easier method for financial planning. The financial statements consist of the Profit and Loss Account, Balance Sheet and the Cash Flow Statement. There are four areas of information, which we can collect from a company's financial statements. They are: Ÿ Profitability - This information comes from the Profit and Loss account. Were we can compare this year's profit with the previous years.
Preparing general-purpose financial statements; including the balance sheet, income statement, statement of retained earnings, and statement of cash flows; is the most important step in the accounting cycle because it represents the purpose of financial accounting.
Each type of financial statement has their own objectives and purposes. Below has shown the purposes of each financial statement:
Financial reporting is the communication that enables users of financial statements to assess the profitability and the financial state of a company( Scott, 2009). This information is provided within an accounting framework to ensure neutrality, comparability and understandability for all users of financial statements. The key role is to reduce information asymmetry between the managers and stakeholders such as investors, creditors, governments, employees, consumers and the general public. These stakeholders are direct or indirect participants in the capital markets from where companies vie for finances in the form of equity or credit(Scott, 2009). In Canada, financial reporting is overseen by the Accounting Standards Board(ASB) whose mandate is to, “ to support informed economic decision-making by maintaining a framework that provides a basis for high quality information about financial performance,”(CICA, 2011). The questions as to whether the ASB should enact new disclosure requirements for firms to report on the environmental performance or sustainable development is fundamentally a question of whether environmental performance and sustainability have a role in economic decision making. The answer hinges on the connection between environmental performance and sustainable development having an influence on financial performance. In this paper, stakeholders to whom this information is important will be discussed, evidence that disclosure is sought and solicited will be presented as well as evidences that environmental performance and sustainability are factors in financial performance will also be discussed. Finally, the case will be made that ASB should enact new disclosure requirements in efforts.
In classified balance sheet categories of assets are: current assets, investments, fixed assets, intangible assets, etc.
There are two different approaches to be applied in order to determining profits¬. These approaches are the asset/ liability approach and the revenue/ expense approach. The NZ Framework as well as most conceptual framework uses the asset/ liability approach. This framework assists preparers determining definitions of assets and liabilities and the definitions of all the other elements flow from them such as expenses, income, and equity. These are crucial to ensure financial statements of preparers to be consistent, objective, and qualitative. Addition, the conceptual framework can be helpful applied in cases having no relevant accounting standards or other guide exist, and having conflicts of benefit. This framework also provides a basis for the prediction and explanation of accounting behavior and events. Finally, the conceptual framework is a measure to assess the quality of preparers, therefore, it can improve their competency.