If you are subscribed to any of our bookkeeping packages, you will receive monthly, quarterly and/or annual financial statements as part of the service package. However, if you do not use us to maintain your books but wish to have your financial statements drafted professionally, then this service is right for you.
Good form financial statements are generally required by potential creditors, investors and vendors to assess the financial strength of your business. Such statements may also be referred to as compilations or notice to reader statements. Simply provide us with relevant financial records and accounting records (if any) and we will prepare the following statements for you.
- Income Statement
- Balance Sheet
- Cash Flow Statement
Income Statement
An income statement (profit and loss statement) is one of the core financial statements required by most businesses to track financial performance. It provides totals for each revenue category less any cost of goods sold, to give you your gross margin for the operating period. Then, all other expenses such as rent, utilities and salaries and wages are subtracted to show your profit or loss for the period. An income statement can allow you to:”
- Track the totals for each revenue category in a given period so you can gauge which parts of your business are bringing in the most money and which parts of your business need improvements.
- Track the totals for each expense category in a given period so you can know exactly how much each expense item is costing your business. You can use this information to come up with effective cost-cutting strategies.
- Maintain strong control over your cost of goods sold by breaking it down into smaller categories so you can know exactly how much you are spending on the goods you sell.
- Monitor unexpectedly large increases or decreases in particular areas of interest such as goods returned, bad debts, payroll expenses and more.
- Determine your tax liability.
- Compare trends such as increases and decreases in all revenue and expense items over multiple periods by using comparative income statements.
Balance Sheet
A balance sheet (statement of financial position) is another one of the core financial statements required by most businesses to track financial performance. It allows you to capture a snapshot of your business’ financial condition at any given time; generally at the end of the month, quarter or year.
A balance sheet provides an itemized list of all of your assets (what you own) and their values, all of your liabilities (what you owe) and their values, and your equity (what’s left over after you take away what you owe from what you own).”
A balance sheet can allow you to:
- Examine your current cash reserves.
- Examine your current liquid assets to determine what items can be converted to pay off current liabilities.
- Accurately track all of your receivables and payables.
- Accurately track your long-term and fixed assets to determine their value and their remaining useful lives.
- Examine the value of your current liabilities (liabilities that need to be paid off in less than a year) and the value of your long-term liabilities (liabilities that need to be paid off after 1 year) separately, so you can allocate your resources more effectively.
- Examine the value of your equity in your business.
- Compare trends such as increases and decreases in all asset, liability and equity items over multiple periods using comparative balance sheets.
Cash Flow Statement
A cash flow statement is also one of the core financial statements required by most businesses to track financial performance. It allows you to track all of your cash in-flows (where your money came from) and your cash out-flows (where your money went) for any given month, quarter or year.
A cash flow statement shows what cash balance you started off with at the beginning of a given period and what cash balance you ended up with at the end of that period.
“Potential investors, creditors or business partners will be interested in knowing this information to assess your ability service your loans, take care of required expenditures and make payments to owners and shareholders.
A cash flow statement generally tracks all cash inflows and outflows under the following categories:
- Operating activities: The amounts paid and received to conduct your core business operations such as money received from sales and money spent on cost of goods sold and salaries and wages.
- Investing activities: The amounts paid and received to make investments in your business such as purchases of machinery or other long-term assets.
- Financing activities: The amounts paid and received to finance your business. These could include money received through loans or sales of stock and payments made to repay loans and owner’s drawings.