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Financial Statements

How's your company's financial health?


Where does its revenue come from, and where does it spend its money? How much profit is it making? Companies provide answers to such questions in three documents, called financial statements:
  • Income statement
  • Balance sheet
  • Cash flow statement
Publicly traded companies make these statements available to everyone—shareholders, industry analysts, and competitors as well. As a result, they are not as detailed as the company's internal financial statements.

Financial statements follow the same general format from company to company. Depending on the nature of the company's business, however, specific line items may vary. Still, the statements are usually similar enough to allow you to compare one business's performance against another's. The reason for this similarity is that accountants abide by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP.

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