Accounting & balance sheet

I would like to start speaking about this topic with defining what accounting is. So accounting is keeping financial records, recording income & expenditure, valuing assets& liabilities, eleberation of budjets & so on. We can devide accounting into two large groups.

Accounting:

Financial accounting

preparing financial statements of various kinds

- financial statements

- tax reterns -

is used for:

Managerial accounting

preparing financial information,

necessary for the company itself;

- controlling

- marketing & management

- pricing

- negotiations

- analyzing the flows of capital

But also there are a lot of other kinds of accounting, such as:

Cost accounting – working out the unit cost of products, including materials, labour & all othe expenses.

Tax accounting – calculating an individual’s or a company’s liability for tax.

“Creative accounting” (or “window dressing”) – using all available accounting procedures & tricks to disguise the true financial position of a company.

Also at the begining of the topic I would like to stress, that we shouldn’t muddle accounting with bookkeeping. Bookkeepingis just writing down (recording) all the details of transactions (debits & credits). Bookkeepers have to record every purchase and sale that a business makes, in the order that they take place, in journals. At a later date, these temporary records are entered in or posted to the relevant account book or ledger. At the end of an accounting period, all the relevant totals are transferred to the profit and loss account. Double-entry bookkeeping records the dual effect of every transaction – a value both receives and parted with. Payments made or debits are entered of the left-hand (debtors) side of an account, and payments received or credits on the right-hand side. Bookkeepers periodically do a trial balance to test whether both sides of an account book match.

So as you see it’s not the same as accounting, actually, I would define bookkeeping as a necessary part (one of the functions) of accounting. Because accountants do record cash flows, & the value of assets & liabilities, & they calculate profits & losses, & so on. But it’s not just writing down numbers. They are in the business of supplying people with information (e. g. shareholders). Even managers always need the help of accountants. They need financial statements & budgets, & cash-flow projection, & so on, to measure the success of what they’ve done, & to make decisions about allocating resources for future projects. They try to find a way to allocate all the overheads to different products. Also accountants try to make a company’s financial situation look as good as possible in the balance sheet (I’m talking about “creative accounting”) & reduce tax bill, despite of the fact, that it’s not legal. So it’s not a full list of everyday duties of any accountant.

One of the function of accounting is also valuing assets, which are things of value or earning power to a firm. Assets can include cash, receivables, bank deposits, and trade investments: investments in other companies. Such assets are called current assets. Assets including land, plant, buildings, and furniture, are called fixed assets. Assets such as plant and equipment that over time wear out or become outdated are said to depreciate. A charge must be made for this depreciation or amortization in calculating a business’s profitability: the assets are depreciated or amortized by an amount each year. Also there are intangible assets, which may include such things as patents owned by the company, and goodwill, the value of the company as a functioning business or going concern with a client base, experienced management, and other benefits that a start-up may not have.

All the money that a company will have to pay to someone else in the future, including taxes, debts, and interest and mortgage payments is calledliabilities. Long-term debts are long-term liabilities. The ratio of a firm’s debt to equity is its gearing or leverage; a firm with a high proportion of debt in relation to equity is highly geared or highly leveraged. Short-term debts and debts to suppliers are among its current liabilities.

& here I would also like to define two more concepts (they seem to be key definitions in topic accounting). I’m talking about debtors & creditors. So

- debtors (or account receivable) – are the sums of money owed by customers for goods or services purchased on credit

- creditors (or accounts payable) – the sums of money owed to suppliers for purchases made on credit

As it has been already mentioned there are different kinds of accounting, different functions of accountants, various possible ways of recording debits & credits, valuing assets & liabilities, calculating profits & losses, etc. But there are generally accepted “accounting principles” that any accountants must follow in order to present “a true & fair view” of a company’s finance. So here are some of them:

1. The matching principle – the revenues generated in an accounting period are identified with related costs whenever they were incurred.
2. The objectivity principle – all data recorded should be verifiable & free from bias.
3. The consistency principle – the same methods (of inventory valuation, depreciation, etc.) must be used from one period to the next.
4. The full-disclosure principle – financial reporting must include all significant information.
5. The principle of conservatism (or prudence) – where alternative accounting methods are possible, one understates rather than overstates profits.
6. The separate-entity or accounting entity assumption – an enterprise is an accounting unit separate from its owners, creditors, etc.
7. The continuity or going-concern assumption – the business will continue indefinitely into the future.
8. The unit-of-measure assumption – all transactions & other items to be accounted for must be in a single, supposedly stable monetary unit.
9. The time-period or accounting period assumption – financial data must be reported for particular (short) periods, which makes accrual & dererral necessary.

10. The historical cost principle – the initial price paid for the asquisition of assets is the one that is recorded in accounts.

11. The revenue or realization principle – revenue is realized at the moment when goods are sold (or change hands) or when services are rendered.

In accordance with the principle of double-entry bookkeeping, the basic accounting equation is Assets = Liabilities + Owners’ (Stockholders’) Equity. This can be rewritten as Assets – Liabilities = Owners’ Equity or Net Assets. This includes share capital (money received from the issue of shares), share premium or paid-in surplus (any money realized by selling shares at above their nominal value), and the company’s reserves, including the year’s retained profits. Stockholders’ or shareholders’ equity or net assets are generally less than a company’s market capitalization, because net assets do not record items such as goodwill.

Also there are various standart ratio measures which are simple enough to calculate:

1. The liquidity ratio = liquid assets/current liabilities
2. The current ratio = current assets/current liabilities
3. Return on capital employed = net profit/capital employed
4. Profit on sales = net profit/turnover
5. Debtors ratio = debtors/sales
6. Creditors ratio = creditors/purchases
7. Debt/equity ratio = long-term loans/shareholders’ funds

These ratios are also often use in simulation or case studies, because they allow students to make an initial assesment of a company’s performance & situation.

Speaking about accounting we can’t but giving difinitions for the following words:

- turnover – the amount of business done by a company over a year

- depreciation – the reduction in value of a fixed asset during the years it is in use (charged against profits)

- inventory – the value of raw materials, work in progress, and finished products stored ready for sale

- overheads – the various expenses of operating a business that cannot be charged to any one product, process or department

Company law specifies that shareholders must be given certain financial information (as it was said at the very beginning). Companies generally include three financial statements in their annual reports:

1. The profit and loss account (or income statement) – shows revenue and expenditure.
2. The balance sheet – shows a company’s financial situation on a particular date, generally the last day of the financial year.
3. The third financial statement has various names, including the source and application of funds statements, and the statement of changes in financial position. This shows the flow of cash in and out of the business between balance sheet dates. Sources of funds include trading profits, depreciation provisions, sales of assets, borrowing, and the issuing of shares. Application of funds include purchases of fixed of financial assets, payment of dividends, repayment of loans, and – in a bad year – trading losses.

I would pay special attention to the balance sheet, because the biggest part of the accountant’s work is concerned with this document.

So the balance sheet is a document that shows the totals of money received and money paid out by a company and the difference between them. The balance sheet includes two parts:

1. assets
2. liabilities and share capital.

Both parts should always be balanced.

The item current assets includes cash, marketable securities, accounts receivable and stock-in-trade. Thus these assets appear to be working assets. Current assets are the assets which a company can convert quickly into cash, usually stock and accounts receivable falling due within one year. Cash includes bills, petty cash fund and money on deposit.

Marketable securities are a short-term investment of surplus or temporary free assets. Normally these assets are allocated into commercial securities or federal bonds. As securities can be required at short notice they are to be easily realized and be subject to price fluctuations as little as possible. The balance sheet shows their nominal cost, their market value is given in brackets.

Account receivables are amounts owed to a business by suppliers of goods and services. Usually customers are allowed a 30, 60 or 90 days period of time within which they are to effect a payment. However. Some customers are not able to pay owing either to financial difficulties or contingency. Hence, the amount is to be reduced for the reserve allowance for bad debt.

Stock-in-trade includes raw materials to be used for production and semi-finished goods. The stock-in-trade value is defined either by its cost or cost market value. The preference is given to a lower one.

Capital assets include property, premises, plant and machinery, and equipment. They are not meant for sale but for the goods production, storage and transportation. This category comprises land, buildings, machinery, equipment, furniture and vehicles. Thus, net capital assets reflect the volume of investment made into property, plant and machinery, and equipment. Capital assets lose their value with age and use. The ral cost of capital assets may gradually lose their value as a result of obsolescence of machinery. New modern technologies make the old equipment obsolescent. Thus, depreciation is a gradual loss in the value of something, such as a vehicle, a machine or any asset that wears out with use and age. The land cannot be depreciated; its value stays unchanged year after year.

Prepayments and deferred charges include, for instance, insurance against fire prepayment or lease prepayments etc.

Deferred charges are similar to prepayments. For instance, a manufacturer allocates money into research work, positive results of which and profit will be seen many years later. So costs are to be discounted within the years to follow.

Intangibles like patents, goodwill and trademarks are not physical substances and are differently evaluated by various companies or may not be evaluated at all.

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