How to read a simple balance sheet and income statement.
Income Statement and Balance Sheet for the period 1 March 2004 to 28 February 2005 for ABC Widgets CC


Assets
Current Assets
Bank Account R 23,450
Debtors R 156,000
Total Current Assets R 179,450
Fixed/non current assets
Buildings R 720,000
Equipment R 125,000
Total fixed/non current assets R 845,000
Total Assets R 1,024,450


Liabilities
Current Liabilities
Loan from owner R 450,000
Creditors R 135,000
Total current Liabilities R 585,000
Non current liabilities
Bond on property R 102,000
Total non Current Liabilities R 102,000
Equity Capital and reserves
Owners' Equity R 90,635
Profit carried forward R 246,815
Sub Total - Equity Capital and reserves R 337,450
Total Liabilties R 1,024,450


Income R 790,000
Cost of Sales R 255,000
Gross Profit R 535,000


Expenses
Postage R 7,800
Staff Welfare R 1,290
Entertainment R 1,250
Travel R 8,900
Commission paid R 6,700
Accounting Fees R 3,500
Insurance R 4,800
Internet Charges R 3,400
Stationery R 5,675
Bank charges R 2,300
Bank Duty R 560
Cell phone expense R 9,600
Telephone R 12,000
Interest paid R 2,455
Lease Charges R 14,500
Repairs & Maintenance R 7,855
Advertising R 15,600
Salaries & Wages R 180,000
Total - Expenses R 288,185
Profit R 246,815

Take a look at the balance sheet and income statement alongside for the fictional business ABC Widgets CC.
It looks intimidating! Right?
Wrong? If you spend less than 5 minutes reading this article you will understand and see the benefits on studying financial statements for your own business.

The financial experts talk about the bottom line. Go rignt now to the end of the financial statements and see that the "bottom line" shows a profit of R246,810.00. Decide if this is good or bad. Most would judge this to be good!. There you have just analysed the most important part of the financial statements.

Now go further:
The financial statements contain two main items:

Balance sheet:
This consists of assets and liabilities. Assets are things you own, like the money in your bank accounts, and people who promise to pay you money - i.e. your customers or debtors.
In this example the bank account has R23,450 in it, and your customers (debtors) still owe the business R156,000). You also own a building worth R720,000 and you have equipment worth R125,000. Does this mean it is in a good financial position? Well we now have to look at what the business owes - loans to repay and other items owed. in this case the business owes you (the owner) R450,000, and it owes suppliers (creditors) R125,000 for goods it has purchased. Ignore the Owner's equity item.

To analyse your balance sheet therefore: You owe suppliers R125,000 while your customer owe you R156,000 - not too bad as long as you can collect that money and your suppliers don't mind being paid late. The loan that the business owes the owner is quite high, and it only has R23,450 in the bank. Basically you need to be concerned about your cashflow. You don't have that much in the bank, and the business can only pay your suppliers when it gets paid by its customers.
There, in another two minutes you have analysed your cashflow!

Continuing...The business owns a building worth R720,000 and only has a bond of R102,000 on it. Not too bad, and a way to raise finance if necessary by increasing the bond.
Note this is often preferable to taking out an overdraft with your bank.

Income Statement
Now to look at the income statement. The income statement shows income of R790,000, with cost of sales of R255,000, giving a gross profit of R535,000. Now look at expenses: The aim of a business is to keep its expenses below income. The total expenses are R288,185, well below the gross profit. That is why the busines has shown such a high profit. It is worthwhile looking at expenses to see which are high and which are low. In this business salaries are R180,000 and make up the vast majority of expenses. Other expense are very low.

When looking at expenses in particular, it is often useful to look at expenses each month over the past couple of years. That way it will be easy to see a trend of ncreasing, or decreasing expenses and take remedial action. Do the same exercise for sales.

There, the job is done - you now know more about this business and its finances than you did 5 minutes ago. you could probably make some good decisions about this business and how to run it just by having done this exercise. Have we proved to you that financial statements have a use, more than just giving to your bank manager because he asked for them?

Do you think your business would perform better if you had this information at your fingertips, and could therefore make informed decisions?

With our product EconoAccounting, you will be able to produce similar financial statements and make better decisions.