Guidance and Knowledge for Value Investors
Accounting is the measurement of economic activity for a business operation. It is customarily reported via financial information. Learn about the basic accounting concepts and the associated principles used in accounting to report financial information.
Insolvency refers to the ability to pay bills in a timely manner. It does not mean bankruptcy but long-term insolvency is a underlying factor of bankruptcy. Many owners and/or managers of small business have no idea of how to determine if the company is insolvent or headed towards the inability to meet their day to day obligations.
Pooling of costs is an accounting trick used to facilitate better matching of costs against the respective revenue stream or predicted cost for the respective product or function.
To understand the cash situation, the cash flows statement is an additional report included in financial statements to basically convert the accrual basis balance sheet and income statement into a cash basis report. This way, management gets the best attributes of both accrual and cash basis accounting.
n a pure cash only operation, the profit as reported on the income statement would also be cash flow from operations. But modern-day business is not pure in how it is conducted. Companies agree to pay suppliers at a later time, payroll is weekly or monthly, benefits that are paid in the future are offered to employees, credit is extended to customers; the list can go on and on.
The accounting profession uses various tools to generate accurate accounting information at the close of accounting cycles (monthly, quarterly and annually). The primary document is the working trial balance. It is very similar to the traditional trial balance except there are additional columns used to identify various adjustments and the corresponding source documents (work papers).
Many of the business performance standards are measured against a baseline. For the bulk of production and operation performance tools the baseline is net sales. The key to an accurate performance standard is having an exact sales figure.
When a business acquires a loan there are typically closing costs involved. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) require these financing costs to be amortized (allocated) over the life of the loan. There are several principles the reader needs to understand to properly calculate and assign these costs to the financial statements. This lesson explains the basic business principles of amortization of financing costs, organization of information, reporting and interpretation. It is written for bookkeepers, novice accountants and small business owners. The final section is an in depth example and model to follow.
Breakeven analysis is a managerial (cost) accounting tool used to examine the relationship of price to cost of a product. It also considers various sales volumes and the effect on profit given the different relationships of price to cost. The breakeven analysis is an essential tool in maximizing profit with the least amount of resources.
Those corporations doing well and flush with cash sometimes buy back stock from their investors. Once purchased back by the company the stock is called treasury stock. However, in small business, buying back stock can significantly alter the entire corporate control ownership and impact the long term outcome and direction of the company.
Many business owners misunderstand the use of term ‘Cost of Sales’ by restricting it to just simply ‘Cost of Goods Sold’. Basically, most business entrepreneurs and even accountants don’t realize that it has several different names and presentation formats. But it is essentially costs of sales.