Financial statements constitute a pivotal segment within corporate reports. Despite serving as a vital reflection of a company’s operational health, financial statements offer a more direct and nuanced portrayal of its operations compared to operational reports. This heightened clarity positions financial statements as a focal point for the management team, who place a greater emphasis on their analysis to gain profound insights into the company’s financial well-being.

In this article, we will thoroughly examine the significance of financial statements, elucidate the various types of financial statements, and provide illustrative examples to facilitate a comprehensive analysis of the three essential financial statements.

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1. What are Financial Statements

Financial statements are written documents prepared regularly based on daily accounting data. They serve to comprehensively reflect the financial condition of an enterprise on a specific date and its operational results, including the cash flow status during a particular period.

From a business perspective, the term “financial statements” typically evokes thoughts of three key accounting reports: the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement.

2. Types of Financial Statements with Financial Statements Examples

The balance sheet offers insights into the enterprise’s financial condition on a specific date (monthly, quarterly report, annually). It encompasses three crucial aspects: assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity, adhering to the balancing equation “Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity.”

The income statement presents the enterprise’s operating results during a defined accounting period. The calculation involves subtracting operating expenses from revenue to determine operating profit, adding non-operating income subtracting non-operating expenses to obtain total profit, and then subtracting income tax expense to arrive at net profit.

The cash flow statement delineates the inflow and outflow of cash and cash equivalents over a specific accounting period. It categorizes cash flows generated through operating, investing, and financing activities, summarizing the net increase in cash and cash equivalents.

In general terms, financial statements at the company level function as accounting reports for external parties or internal management to analyze the company’s financial and operational status. Our interpretation of financial statements emphasizes expanding the income statement to illustrate the company’s operating results over a specific period.

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3. How are the Three Financial Statements Presented?

Similar to operational reports, the display of financial statements is bifurcated into two segments: the dashboard and the independent reporting module. Within the dashboard, essential financial metrics critical to management, such as income and expenditure details and daily financial data, take center stage. Additionally, pending reminders for bills to be received or paid are prominently featured, offering management a comprehensive overview of the company’s financial standing and outstanding tasks.

Beyond the presentation of financial data on the dashboard, the independent financial reporting module plays a crucial role in showcasing data dashboards and detailed statements. This encompasses comprehensive reports on bills and transaction details. Some systems within the reporting module may incorporate “executive reports,” furnishing daily or monthly operational reports that amalgamate both operational and financial data. The financial data within these reports primarily focuses on billing specifics and financial transaction status, including the quantity and value of bills receivable or payable. Furthermore, the financial transaction status encompasses the daily cash inflow and outflow, coupled with details on overdue rent for the following day.

4. The Content of Financial Statements

The content that financial statements need to showcase is quite similar to operational reports, requiring the presentation of summarized data, daily data, comparative data, and detailed reports.

The independent financial reporting module is typically divided into two sections: transaction reports and billing reports. Transaction reports encompass the company’s income and expenditure statements, while billing reports focus on statements related to bills, primarily showcasing the payment status and collection details of bills.

4.1 Aggregated Data

4.1.1 Income and Expenditure Statement

The overview report of the Income and Expenditure Statement primarily delves into the company’s financial landscape, encompassing income, expenditure, and profit situations.

Initiating with “achievement data,” it consolidates the cumulative total income, total expenditure, and overall income and expenditure since the system’s initiation. This comprehensive report also features a trend chart and detailed breakdowns of income and expenditure for specific periods. The income and expenditure trend chart offers a holistic view of the company’s financial trajectory, providing insights into the approximate profit (income – expenditure). Meanwhile, the detailed breakdowns not only enumerate the total amounts, types, and categories of income and expenditure but also facilitate periodical comparisons. This aids management in understanding the nuances of income and expenditure categories across different periods.

In industries like real estate and sales, the rental sector witnesses competition among various branches, necessitating an income ranking. However, a straightforward ranking for each branch may prove unjust due to inherent variations, such as differences in staff and property resources. These disparities naturally impact income levels. To address this, when comparing income rankings, it becomes crucial to include metrics such as the number of rooms rented out and the total number of rooms for each branch. This multidimensional approach to evaluating branch performance ensures a more equitable assessment.

4.1.2 Billing Reports

Billing Reports primarily showcase the company’s receivable and collected bills, calculating the collection rate and deducing the company’s accounts receivable level based on this rate. The initial presentation in the Billing Reports is also of the “achievement data” for bills, including the number and amount of receivable and collected bills, providing a rough collection rate.

Additionally, it is essential to present comparative data for receivable bills, collected bills, and collection rates for each branch. Comparative data from the billing reports can illustrate the business proficiency of each branch, while the collection rate reveals the billing collection status for each branch. A low collection rate indicates a higher number of overdue and bad debts for that branch, necessitating problem identification and improvement.

The statistics of accounts receivable mainly serve as an estimate for future expected income. The future accounts receivable are calculated based on existing lease contracts, primarily accounting for expected rental income. Analyzing accounts receivable allows management to gain a rough understanding of the company’s rental income for the upcoming months, facilitating strategic planning based on cash flow in advance.

4.2 Detailed Reports

Detailed reports are also divided into two parts: one is the transaction report, and the other is the billing report.

4.2.1 Transaction Report

The transaction report primarily showcases each branch and each period, allowing a view of the income and expenditure transaction details from the perspective of property or date.

Examining transactions from the property perspective is particularly helpful for business personnel to scrutinize transaction data. When business personnel have questions about specific transaction data, they can cross-reference the property income and expenditure transaction table for clarification.

The date transaction report not only provides statistics from the perspective of revenue categories but also allows for statistics based on payment channels. The date transaction report for payment channels primarily assists financial personnel in reconciling accounts. Tenants use various payment channels, including cash, Alipay, WeChat, bank cards, and other online and offline methods. Financial personnel can conveniently and swiftly carry out reconciliation operations by compiling the date transaction report for payment channels.

4.2.2 Billing Report

In the billing report, the main focus is on displaying data related to receivable bills, payable bills, and collection rates. The primary emphasis lies on the payment status of bills, and if there are bills pending payment or overdue, collection operations need to be initiated.

In the billing report, in addition to the report on collection status, there is also a detailed accounts receivable report. In the data overview, there is approximate accounts receivable data, and correspondingly, there is a detailed accounts receivable report. The future data report is essentially an estimate of expected business based on existing contracts. In the future data report, one can query the number and amount of pending bills for each branch in the coming months.

After reviewing the overall data, you can examine the detailed accounts receivable report. The detailed accounts receivable report is primarily designed for business personnel to assess the future receivables of the properties they are responsible for, enabling them to take timely and appropriate actions.

4.3 Comparative Data

In financial statements, comparative data is also compared from the dimensions of branches and periods, mainly focusing on contrasting performance indicators such as income and expenditure, collection rates, and accounts receivable statistics. In detailed reports, it is also possible to compare transaction and billing data from the perspective of specific rooms.

5. A Conclusion of Financial Statements

The core of financial statements lies in transactions and bills. Financial statements not only assist management in understanding the company’s income and expenditure situation and expected revenue but also help business personnel with auditing and provide financial personnel with a convenient way to reconcile accounts.

Reports serve as a summary and visualization of systematically collected data. To ensure accurate financial data collection, daily business transactions, both online and offline, should be conducted within the system.

In the design of the accounting module, consideration should be given to recording entries for different business operations. Whether it’s online channel payments or timely recording of offline payments online, only then can the displayed financial data be more authentic, enabling stable strategic decision-making based on such financial data.

To meet these requirements and create high-quality, logically clear financial statements, professional financial statement software is indispensable. FineReport, as a leading enterprise reporting software, supports cross-system and cross-database integration of multiple data, allowing for the application of more data in business analysis and control. With its Excel-like report designer and innovative development mode, FineReport facilitates the simple and flexible development of required reports, rapidly addressing diverse reporting needs. Reports can adapt to displays on various screen sizes, dynamically refreshing real-time data for management to track the latest business developments.

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