Financial Management

In a two- to three-page paper (not including the title and reference pages), explain the purpose of a balance sheet and analyze Ford Motor Company's balance sheet from its 2012 Annual Report. In your analysis, you must determine the financial ratios and compare them to industry standards.

Your paper must be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center, and it must include citations and references for the text and at least two scholarly sources from the Ashford University Library.

The Balance Sheet

A balance sheet offers a quick overview of an organization's financial status on a given day. A balance sheet is formed based on a key accounting equation:

Assets = Liabilities + Equity.

A balance has two sides, the debit side and the credit side. Transactions entered have to balance in order to account for all money going in and out. Preparation of a balance sheet is guided by basic rules that specify how such elements as dates, numbers and format have to be presented. Since a balance sheet shows a company's financial position on any particular day, the date appears on top of the balance sheet with such words as "as of", the year, the month and the day, and it is prepared on the last day of the period being presented. It is important to pay attention to numbers used in the preparation of a balance and the type of currency used. In addition, presentation of a balance sheet can take many formats, among them the report format, financial position format, and account format.

As depicted in the balance sheet equation earlier, a balance sheet is made up of assets, liabilities and equity. Assets can be grouped into current assets and long term assets. Current assets are those assets expected to be used within 12 months and they include cash and cash equivalents, marketable securities, accounts receivable, inventories, deferred taxes, prepaid expenses and other current assets. The fixed assets include property, plant, and equipment, prepaid pension, goodwill, intangible assets (patents, trademark, and copyrights), and other assets such as investment and sundry assets. Assets are recorded on the debit side of the balance sheet.

Liabilities, on the other hand, represent items the company is indebted; just as is the case with assets, they are grouped into two categories: current liabilities and long-term liabilities. Short term liabilities include taxes, short-term debt, accounts payable, accrued payroll, deferred income and other liabilities. Long-term liabilities are those payable within a period of more than 12 months and include retirement and post-retirement benefits, long-term debt and commitment and contingencies. Equity indicates the proportion of a company's assets that can be claimed by owners and can be in the form of stockholders' equity, common stock, preferred stock, retained earnings and treasury stock, and additional paid-in capital (Thermond, 2014).

Inventory valuation differs from company to company and the exercise can be accomplished through five common methods of valuation, such as LIFO, FIFO, average cost, specific identification and lower of cost. A common-sized balance sheet is used by managers and executives in comparing competing companies whose size is different.

Forbes School of Business Faculty

Reference:

Thermond, J. (2014). Mastering the balance sheet can make or break a startup. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/xseedcapital/2014/03/27/mastering-the-balance-sheet-can-make-or-break-a-startup/