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Trend Analysis and Common Size Financial Statements

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TREND ANALYSIS AND COMMON SIZE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Financial statements provide information in assessing the financial health of a company. Basically, these include the Balance Sheet, Income statement, and the Statement of Cash Flows. While a one-year information is important in providing a picture of the company’s current financial condition, several years of financial information could provide a more adequate information on the company’s track record, through a trend analysis.
TREND ANALYSIS A trend analysis is important because it would tell whether the company’s financial performance has improved or deteriorated. Unlike a one-year information, making use of several years of financial information and determining the trend would: 1. provide a basis of comparing periodic performances, 2. determine the direction that the company is leading to, and 3. Provide a more adequate basis of determining company’s strengths and weaknesses.

COMMON SIZE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS A common size balance sheet expresses each item on the balance sheet as a percentage of total assets. On the other hand, a common size income statement expresses each income statement category as a percentage of net sales (Fraser, 2001). Expressing the items in terms of percentage to total assets (e.g. accounts receivable) would facilitate an analysis of the composition of assets within major categories. Too large percentage of inventories would be alarming because it would indicate that a very large portion of the company’s assets is not that liquid or could hardly be converted into cash. On the other hand, too large percentage of accounts receivable to total assets may easily indicate that: there may be collection inefficiencies, AR policies are too lax, etc. In the case of income statements, a large percentage of cost of goods sold to net sales may indicate a need to have

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