Important Financial Documents for Your Small Business
Managing the finances of your small business can be a challenge. To survive and thrive, you must earn profit consistently, generate cash flow from profit, and control your financial condition. You need a separate financial statement to highlight each aspect:
The P&L Statement (also called the Income, or Earnings Statement) summarizes revenue and expenses and reports your resulting profit or loss — that’s what the P and L stand for.
The Statement of Cash Flows begins by reporting the net increase or decrease in cash from your revenue and expenses during the period (which is a different amount than your profit or loss for the period); this statement also summarizes other sources of cash you tapped during the period, and what you did with your available cash.
The Balance Sheet (also called the Statement of Financial Condition) summarizes your assets and liabilities at the close of business on the last day of the profit period and reports the sources of your owners’ equity (assets less liabilities).
Make sure that you know how to read and interpret your financial statements. Not understanding your own business’s financial statements puts you at a serious disadvantage in making good business decisions and in dealing with your lenders and owners.
Of course, the information in your financial statements is no better than your accounting system. Hire a competent accountant to design and run your accounting system. Your accountant can be a valuable helpmate in managing your financial affairs.
Don’t confuse your balance sheet with the market value of your business. True, your balance sheet reports your assets and liabilities, and the difference equals the book value of your owners’ equity. Keep in mind, however, that historical costs are the values for many assets, and the balance sheet does not report your profit performance over recent years. Yet, the market value of a business depends heavily on current replacement values of your assets and your recent profit performance.
Accounting Glossary
accounting equation
The equation Assets = Liabilities + Equity, which demonstrates the two-sided nature of accounting and is useful for explaining the concept of double-entry accounting (or double-entry bookkeeping).
Accounting Glossary
accounting period
The time period for which financial information is being tracked in a business, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually.
Accounting Glossary
accounts receivable
An account that records the amounts that customers owe to a business.
Accounting Glossary
adjusting entry
A correction made to a bookkeeping account that adjusts for accounting errors or other necessary changes at the end of the accounting period.
Accounting Glossary
cash flows
Used to describe the source or sources of cash or how cash is used.
Accounting Glossary
Chart of Accounts
A list of all the accounts used by a business, including what types of transactions go into each account.
Accounting Glossary
debit
An accounting entry that increases an asset or expense account, and decreases a liability or income account.
Accounting Glossary
dividends
A portion of a company’s profits paid by share of common stock on a quarterly or annual basis.
Accounting Glossary
FASB
Financial Accounting Standards Board. FASB is the highest-ranking authority in the private (non-government) sector of the U.S. for making pronouncements on GAAP and for keeping accounting standards up-to-date.
Accounting Glossary
Federal Unemployment Tax
In the U.S., the fund that used to be known simply as Unemployment. Employers contribute to the fund, and states also collect taxes to fill their unemployment fund reserves. (The acronym FUTA means Federal Unemployment Tax Act.)
Accounting Glossary
fidelity bonds
A type of insurance — typically carried by employers for their employees — that helps guard against theft and reduce the risk of loss.
Accounting Glossary
FIFO
First-in, first-out. A method for costs of goods sold in which a business charges out product costs to cost of goods sold expense in the chronological order in which the goods were acquired.
Accounting Glossary
fungible
Describes a product that is interchangeable and virtually indistinguishable from another product.
Accounting Glossary
General Ledger
A summary of all of a business’s accounts and transactions.
Accounting Glossary
IASB
International Accounting Standards Board. The IASB (based in London) is the main authoritative accounting standards setter outside the U.S.
Accounting Glossary
Journals
The location in which bookkeepers keep records (in chronological order) of daily company transactions.
Accounting Glossary
LIFO
Last-in, first-out. A method for costs of goods sold that selects the last item you purchased first, and then works backward until you have the total cost for the total number of units sold during the period.
Accounting Glossary
LLP
Limited liability partnership. A legal structure that state laws offer to qualified professionals in which all the partners have limited liability.
Accounting Glossary
PC
Professional corporation. A legal structure that state laws offer to qualified professionals who otherwise would have to operate as an unlimited partnership liability.
Accounting Glossary
petty cash
A cash account that businesses keep on hand for unexpected expenses.
Accounting Glossary
revenue
Monies that are collected in the process of selling a company’s goods and services.
Accounting Glossary
salvage value
The amount that an asset is worth after it has been fully depreciated.
Accounting Glossary
statement of cash flows
A financial statement that summarizes a business’s cash inflows and outflows during an accounting period.
Accounting Glossary
transactions
Economic exchanges between a business or other entity and the parties with which the entity interacts and makes deals.
Accounting Glossary
worker’s compensation insurance
A type of insurance carried by employers that covers its employees in case they are injured on the job.
