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The Nature of Financial Statements   no comments

Posted at 4:27 pm in Financial Statements

To apply the insights gained from the conceptual overview of the business system, we must now look for available information that will:
•    Allow the manager or analyst to track the financial condition and operating results of the business.
•    Assist in understanding the cash flow patterns in more specific terms.
In the process of financial/economic analysis, a variety of formal or informal data are normally reviewed and tested for their relevance to the specific purpose of the analysis. The most common form in which basic financial information is available publicly, unless a company is privately held, is the set of financial statements issued under guidelines of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) of the public accounting profession and governed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Such a set of statements, prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), usually contains balance sheets as of given dates, income statements for given periods, and cash flow statements for the same periods. A special statement highlighting changes in owners’ equity on the balance sheet is commonly provided as well.
Since financial statements are the source for a good portion of analytical efforts, we must first understand their nature, coverage, and limitations before we can use the data and observations derived from these statements for our analytical judgments. Financial statements reflect the cumulative effects of all of management’s past decisions. However, they involve considerable ambiguity. Financial statements are governed by rules that attempt to consistently and fairly account for every business transaction using the following conservative principles:
•    Transactions are recorded at values prevailing at the time.
•    Adjustments to recorded values are made only if values decline.
•    Revenues and costs are recognized when committed to, not when cash actually changes hands.
•    Periodic matching of revenues and costs is achieved via accruals, deferrals, and accounting allocations.
•    Allowances for negative contingencies are required in the form of estimates that reduce both profits and recorded value, usually affecting shareholders’ equity or special set-asides.
These rules leave reported financial accounting results open to considerable interpretation, especially if the analyst seeks to understand a company’s economic performance and to establish the basis for shareholder value results. It’s common practice among professional analysts to adjust the data reflected on financial statements for known accounting transactions which do not affect cash flows, and to make assumptions about the economic values underlying recorded asset values.

Written by admin on November 27th, 2009

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