Annual Report Financial Statements

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Introduction An important part of financial planning for corporations is the annual report. Publically held companies are required to submit an annual report to the SEC and private companies, even though not required, can use an annual report to gauge the performance of the company for the past year and use the report to plan for the future. The financial statements that make up an annual report are the income statement, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flows. (Melicher, 2014) Once all of the financial information has been compiled and the three statements that make up the annual report have been completed a corporation can then start to analyze the data. There are several different categories of financial ratios …show more content…

The purpose of an income statement is to report the revenue generated and the expenses incurred by a corporation for the past year. (Melicher, 2014) The gross revenue is the first item on the financial statement followed by several expenses and then the net revenue. One of the expenses a corporation incurs is the cost of goods sold, which is the amount of money it costs a corporation to produce or manufacture the items sold to generate a profit. The second expense on a financial statement is the cost of record keeping, preparing financial statements, advertising, and salaries grouped under the heading “Selling, general, marketing expenses”. The other expenses on an income statement are depreciation, interest expense, and the unavoidable income tax. (Melicher, 2014) Once all of these expenses haven been deducted from the gross revenue a company has an accurate depiction of their net …show more content…

The collection of these three financial statements identifies the financial position of the corporation to help identify the way forward financially for the company. Once all of the data has been collected for the annual reporting the corporation can analyze the data through the different financial ratios including the liquidity ratio, the asset management ratio, and the profitability ratio.

References
Candor Equities Limited. 2012. “Types of Financial Ratios”. Investing Fundamentals Candor Equities Limited Online. http://cel.candor-holdings.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/types_of_financial_ratios_19mar_2012.pdf. (Accessed 11 October 2015)
Melicher, Ronald W. and Norton, Edgar A. 2014. "Introduction to Finance: Markets, Investments, and Financial Management. 15th Edition". New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons,

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