Knowing and understanding what is Statement of Changes in Equity

A statement of changes in equity shows all changes in owner’s equity for a period of time. According to IAS 1, this statement of financial reporting is one the five components of complete financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, statement of changes in equity, statement of cash flow and notes to financial statements.

IAS 1 requires an entity to present a statement of changes in equity as a separate component of the financial statements. The statement must show: [IAS 1.96]

(a) profit or loss for the period;

(b) each item of income and expense for the period that is recognised directly in equity, and the total of those items; Read more

How do the cash flow statement flows?

After understanding your financial condition and performance by reading your balance sheet and income statement, you may now have the picture of how your business is running. However, seeing a positive equity in your balance sheet or a profit in your income statement doesn’t make your financial understanding complete. The cash flow statement is one of the five main financial statements of a company. The cash flow statement tells us how sustainable a company is in a short run. If cash is increasing and cash flow generated by operations is positive, then we can tell that a company is healthy in the short-term. Increasing or stable cash balances means that a company is capable of meeting its cash needs, and remain solvent. This information cannot always be seen in the balance sheet or income statement of a company. For example a company may be generating profit, but still it cannot meet or pay its short –term payables or obligations. Read more

How to Compute Profit for a Service Provider Company

A service company is one that sells services to its clients. Different from manufacturing and trading companies, it provides services or works of labor rather than tangible products to its customers. Accounting firms, law firms, schools, janitorial and hotel companies are some of examples of service provider companies. As the operation of this kind differs from the others, the computation and preparation of its statement of operation also differs. Since a service company sells services, we need to compute its cost of services, as computing cost of goods sold in a manufacturing and trading firms which sells goods to its costumers. But in all kind of firms, we compute direct and indirect costs to determine gross and net profit.

The revenues of a service company consist of all its receipts and receivables from rendering services during the period less all refunds associated from them. Unearned revenues collected during the period are not included because they are not related to the services rendered during the period. This concept is called accrual basis. Read more

Reading your statement of income or profit and loss statement

Among the four basic components of financial statements (the balance sheet, statement of changes in equity, income statement and cash flow statement), the statement of income is the most interesting and exciting to read by its common users. This is true, since it indicates if an entity is having a profit or a loss, and that every business owners, investors, creditors and even the tax authorities may primarily want to see and know first if an entity is earning or making money out of running its business and utilizing its resources.

An income statement also called profit and loss statement (P&L) or sometimes prepared as statement of operation, is a formal statement showing the performance of an entity for a given period of time. The performance of the entity is primarily measured in terms of the level of income earned by the entity through the effective and efficient utilization of its resources. Income statement indicates how revenue (money received or receivable earned from the sale of products and services before costs and expenses are taken out) is transformed into net income or net profit (the result after all revenues, costs and expenses have been accounted for). This income performance is used to be known as the results of operations of the entity. Read more

Sample one-year and two-year comparative balance sheet statements

In my previous post, I wrote about understanding the balance sheet. Balance sheet shows the financial condition of a particular business entity. Reading and understanding balance sheet is very important for short-term and long-term analysis. This statement is the ultimate financial statement since income statement’s net profit is forwarded and closed in the retained earnings (which is shown in the equity section of the balance sheet); cash flow statement is netted to cash and reported as current asset in the asset section of the balance sheet; and the equity in the statement of changes in equity is also forwarded as equity in the balance sheet. Read more

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