Financial Statement Analysis: How It’s Done, by Statement Type (2024)

What Is Financial Statement Analysis?

Financial statement analysis is the process of analyzing a company’s financial statements for decision-making purposes. External stakeholders use it to understand the overall health of an organization and to evaluate financial performance and business value. Internal constituents use it as a monitoring tool for managing the finances.

Key Takeaways

  • Financial statement analysis is used by internal and external stakeholders to evaluate business performance and value.
  • Financial accounting calls for all companies to create a balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement, which form the basis for financial statement analysis.
  • Horizontal, vertical, and ratio analysis are three techniques that analysts use when analyzing financial statements.

Financial Statement Analysis: How It’s Done, by Statement Type (1)

How to Analyze Financial Statements

The financial statements of a company record important financial data on every aspect of a business’s activities. As such, they can be evaluated on the basis of past, current, and projected performance.

In general, financial statements are centered around generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in the United States. These principles require a company to create and maintain three main financial statements: the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement. Public companies have stricter standards for financial statement reporting. Public companies must follow GAAP, which requires accrual accounting. Private companies have greater flexibility in their financial statement preparation and have the option to use either accrual or cash accounting.

Several techniques are commonly used as part of financial statement analysis. Three of the most important techniques are horizontal analysis, vertical analysis, and ratio analysis. Horizontal analysis compares data horizontally, by analyzing values of line items across two or more years. Vertical analysis looks at the vertical effects that line items have on other parts of the business and the business’s proportions. Ratio analysis uses important ratio metrics to calculate statistical relationships.

Types of Financial Statements

Companies use the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement to manage the operations of their business and to provide transparency to their stakeholders. All three statements are interconnected and create different views of a company’s activities and performance.

Balance Sheet

The balance sheet is a report of a company’s financial worth in terms of book value. It is broken into three parts to include a company’s assets,liabilities, andshareholder equity. Short-term assets such as cash and accounts receivable can tell a lot about a company’s operational efficiency; liabilities include the company’s expense arrangements and the debt capital it is paying off; and shareholder equity includes details on equity capital investments and retained earnings from periodic net income. The balance sheet must balance assets and liabilities to equal shareholder equity. This figure is considered a company’s book value and serves as an important performance metric that increases or decreases with the financial activities of a company.

Income Statement

The income statement breaks down the revenue that a company earns against the expenses involved in its business to provide a bottom line, meaning the net profit or loss. The income statement is broken into three parts that help to analyze business efficiency at three different points. It begins with revenue and the direct costs associated with revenue to identify gross profit. It then moves to operating profit, which subtracts indirect expenses like marketing costs, general costs, and depreciation. Finally, after deducting interest and taxes, the net income is reached.

Basic analysis of the income statement usually involves the calculation of gross profit margin, operating profit margin, and net profit margin, which each divide profit by revenue. Profit margin helps to show where company costs are low or high at different points of the operations.

Cash Flow Statement

The cash flow statement provides an overview of the company’s cash flows from operating activities, investing activities, and financing activities. Net income is carried over to the cash flow statement, where it is included as the top line item for operating activities. Like its title, investing activities include cash flows involved with firm-wide investments. The financing activities section includes cash flow from both debt and equity financing. The bottom line shows how much cash a company has available.

Free Cash Flow and Other Valuation Statements

Companies and analysts also use free cash flow statements and other valuation statements to analyze the value of a company. Free cash flow statements arrive at a net present value by discounting the free cash flow that a company is estimated to generate over time. Private companies may keep a valuation statement as they progress toward potentially going public.

Financial Performance

Financial statements are maintained by companies daily and used internally for business management. In general, both internal and external stakeholders use the same corporate finance methodologies for maintaining business activities and evaluating overall financial performance.

When doing comprehensive financial statement analysis, analysts typically use multiple years of data to facilitate horizontal analysis. Each financial statement is also analyzed with vertical analysis to understand how different categories of the statement are influencing results. Finally, ratio analysis can be used to isolate some performance metrics in each statement and bring together data points across statements collectively.

Below is a breakdown of some of the most common ratio metrics:

  • Balance sheet: This includes asset turnover, quick ratio, receivables turnover, days to sales, debt to assets, and debt to equity.
  • Income statement: This includes gross profit margin, operating profit margin, net profit margin, tax ratio efficiency, and interest coverage.
  • Cash flow: This includes cash and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA). These metrics may be shown on a per-share basis.
  • Comprehensive: This includes return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE), along with DuPont analysis.

What are the advantages of financial statement analysis?

The main point of financial statement analysis is to evaluate a company’s performance or value through a company’s balance sheet, income statement, or statement of cash flows. By using a number of techniques, such as horizontal, vertical, or ratio analysis, investors may develop a more nuanced picture of a company’s financial profile.

What are the different types of financial statement analysis?

Most often, analysts will use three main techniques for analyzing a company’s financial statements.

First, horizontal analysis involves comparing historical data. Usually, the purpose of horizontal analysis is to detect growth trends across different time periods.

Second, vertical analysis compares items on a financial statement in relation to each other. For instance, an expense item could be expressed as a percentage of company sales.

Finally, ratio analysis, a central part of fundamental equity analysis, compares line-item data. Price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios, earnings per share, or dividend yield are examples of ratio analysis.

What is an example of financial statement analysis?

An analyst may first look at a number of ratios on a company’s income statement to determine how efficiently it generates profits and shareholder value. For instance, gross profit margin will show the difference between revenues and the cost of goods sold. If the company has a higher gross profit margin than its competitors, this may indicate a positive sign for the company. At the same time, the analyst may observe that the gross profit margin has been increasing over nine fiscal periods, applying a horizontal analysis to the company’s operating trends.

Financial Statement Analysis: How It’s Done, by Statement Type (2024)

FAQs

How is financial statement analysis done? ›

Several techniques are commonly used as part of financial statement analysis. Three of the most important techniques are horizontal analysis, vertical analysis, and ratio analysis. Horizontal analysis compares data horizontally, by analyzing values of line items across two or more years.

What are the 5 methods of financial statement analysis? ›

There are five commonplace approaches to financial statement analysis: horizontal analysis, vertical analysis, ratio analysis, trend analysis and cost-volume profit analysis.

What is financial statement type? ›

For-profit businesses use four primary types of financial statement: the balance sheet, the income statement, the statement of cash flow, and the statement of retained earnings. Read on to explore each one and the information it conveys.

What are the 5 types of financial statements with examples? ›

3. 5 Types of Financial Statements
  • 3.1. Balance Sheet. The first type of financial report is the balance sheet. ...
  • 3.2. Income Statement. The second type of financial report is the income statement. ...
  • 3.3. Cash Flow Statement. ...
  • 3.4. Statement of Changes in Capital. ...
  • 3.5. Notes to Financial Statements.
Dec 28, 2022

What are the basic steps in the financial analysis process? ›

To perform financial analysis, there are five effective steps that businesses can follow:
  • Comparison between Forecast and Actual Monthly Results. ...
  • Identify Exceeding Projections or Off-Track Performance. ...
  • Review Income and Expenses. ...
  • Analyze Cash Flow Statement. ...
  • Review Balance Sheet.
Apr 26, 2023

How to do financial analysis of a balance sheet? ›

As with the income statement, the easiest way to analyze a balance sheet is to look at ratios. The first ratio we are going to look at is called the current ratio, and sometimes is referred to as the working capital ratio. It is very easy to calculate. It is simply current assets divided by current liabilities.

How to do a financial statement? ›

5 steps to prepare your financial statements
  1. Step 1: gather all relevant financial data. ...
  2. Step 2: categorize and organize the data. ...
  3. Step 3: draft preliminary financial statements. ...
  4. Step 4: review and reconcile all data. ...
  5. Step 5: finalize and report.
Oct 24, 2023

What are the three tools for Analysing financial statement? ›

Tools of Financial Statement Analysis

The three major tools for financial statement analyses are horizontal analysis, vertical analysis, and ratios analysis. You might have used some of them and just never knew their academic name. Horizontal analysis is also called comparative analysis.

What are the 4 important types of financial statement? ›

There are four primary types of financial statements:
  • Balance sheets.
  • Income statements.
  • Cash flow statements.
  • Statements of shareholders' equity.
Nov 1, 2023

What are the three main types of financial statements? ›

The income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows are required financial statements. These three statements are informative tools that traders can use to analyze a company's financial strength and provide a quick picture of a company's financial health and underlying value.

What is analysis and interpretation of financial statements? ›

Financial statement analysis involves examining an organization's financial statements to assess its financial performance, position, and cash flows. It provides insights into profitability, liquidity, solvency, and operational efficiency.

What are the basics of financial statements? ›

Financial statements show how a business operates. It provides insight into how much and how a business generates revenues, what the cost of doing business is, how efficiently it manages its cash, and what its assets and liabilities are.

What is the basic understanding of financial statements? ›

There are three major financial statements: the balance sheet, profit-and-loss statement and cash-flow statement. The balance sheet tells you about the assets and liabilities of a company. The profit-and-loss statement tells you about a company's profitability.

What is the financial statement structure? ›

There are four main financial statements. They are: (1) balance sheets; (2) income statements; (3) cash flow statements; and (4) statements of shareholders' equity.

What are the three steps in analyzing financial statements? ›

Steps To Analyze Financial Statements
  1. Gather And Review Financial Statements. Your first step is to gather your balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement for the period. ...
  2. Calculate Financial Ratios. ...
  3. Compare Ratios And Industry Benchmarks. ...
  4. Identify Trends Over Time. ...
  5. Interpret Findings And Draw Conclusions.

What are the tools of financial statement analysis? ›

Tools of Financial Statement Analysis

The three major tools for financial statement analyses are horizontal analysis, vertical analysis, and ratios analysis. You might have used some of them and just never knew their academic name. Horizontal analysis is also called comparative analysis.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Kelle Weber

Last Updated:

Views: 5931

Rating: 4.2 / 5 (73 voted)

Reviews: 80% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Kelle Weber

Birthday: 2000-08-05

Address: 6796 Juan Square, Markfort, MN 58988

Phone: +8215934114615

Job: Hospitality Director

Hobby: tabletop games, Foreign language learning, Leather crafting, Horseback riding, Swimming, Knapping, Handball

Introduction: My name is Kelle Weber, I am a magnificent, enchanting, fair, joyous, light, determined, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.