Put the most valuable business tool to work for you! The balance sheet is the key to everything--from efficient business operation to accurate assessment of a company’s worth. It’s a critical business resource--but do you know how to read it? How to Read a Balance Sheet breaks down the subject into easy-to-understand components. If you're a business owner or manager, this book helps you . . . Manage working capital Generate higher returns on assets Maximize your inventory dollars Evaluate investment opportunities If you're an investor, this book helps you . . . Determine the market value of a company's assets and operations Predict future earnings and trends Assess the impact of capital expenditures Identify potential "red flags" before the crowd How to Read a Balance Sheet gives you the bottom line of what you need to know about: Cash Flow * Assets * Debt * Equity * Profit and how it all comes together.

The purpose of this book is to help readers understand the basics of understanding financial statements. Material covered includes a step-by-step instruction on how to read and understand the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow statement. It also covers information about how these three statements are interconnected with one another.

"All investors, from beginners to old hands, should gain from the use of this guide, as I have." From the Introduction by Michael F. Price, president, Franklin Mutual Advisors, Inc. Benjamin Graham has been called the most important investment thinker of the twentieth century. As a master investor, pioneering stock analyst, and mentor to investment superstars, he has no peer. The volume you hold in your hands is Graham's timeless guide to interpreting and understanding financial statements. It has long been out of print, but now joins Graham's other masterpieces, The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis, as the three priceless keys to understanding Graham and value investing. The advice he offers in this book is as useful and prescient today as it was sixty years ago. As he writes in the preface, "if you have precise information as to a company's present financial position and its past earnings record, you are better equipped to gauge its future possibilities. And this is the essential function and value of security analysis." Written just three years after his landmark Security Analysis, The Interpretation of Financial Statements gets to the heart of the master's ideas on value investing in astonishingly few pages. Readers will learn to analyze a company's balance sheets and income statements and arrive at a true understanding of its financial position and earnings record. Graham provides simple tests any reader can apply to determine the financial health and well-being of any company. This volume is an exact text replica of the first edition of The Interpretation of Financial Statements, published by Harper & Brothers in 1937. Graham's original language has been restored, and readers can be assured that every idea and technique presented here appears exactly as Graham intended. Highly practical and accessible, it is an essential guide for all business people--and makes the perfect companion volume to Graham's investment masterpiece The Intelligent Investor.

Examines the intricacies of balance sheet interpretation in the fields of commerce and industry. The book is designed to act as a learning tool and revisionary aid for students but would be of use to anyone involved in presenting and/or interpreting balance sheets.

With an insider's view of the mind of the master, Mary Buffett and David Clark have written a simple guide for reading financial statements from Buffett's successful perspective. They clearly outline Warren Buffett's strategies in a way that will appeal to newcomers and seasoned Buffettologists alike. Inspired by the seminal work of Buffett's mentor, Benjamin Graham, this book presents Buffett's interpretation of financial statements with anecdotes and quotes from the master investor himself. Destined to become a classic in the world of investment books, Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements is the perfect companion volume to The New Buffettology and The Tao of Warren Buffett.

Written by two financial and accounting authorities, this hands-on working reference enables you to understand a company's balance sheet within the context of its annual report. You'll find detailed information on exactly what a balance sheet is, how it works, and how it's used to increase profitability; the individual components: receivables, cash, inventory, long-lived assets, current payables, long-term debt, and equity; how these different elements relate to each other, how they come into being, and how they should be controlled in your business; and how accounting data is created, accumulated, and used in the development of financial statements.

This book introduces the reader to the Annual Report and discusses its various components namely, the directors report, the audit report and the financial statements. It helps the reader to unravel the mysteries of the financial statements and comprehend the innovativeness of creative accounting.

Balance sheet analysis can reveal lot of important information about the company. A user of balance sheet if interpret the figures correctly can safeguard his interests and protect himself against creative accounting practices. · It is a snapshot of company’s assets, liabilities & equity on a given date. · It is used by management, investors, bankers, & creditors rating agencies to understand the financial health of a company. · It is the minimum requirement for availing credit facilities from banking system. · Users can interpret balance sheet to know the liquidity & leverage position of a company. · It is used by investors to compare with other companies and to find out stocks good for value investing. · It enables the credit providers to ascertain proper utilization of funds by the company. · It is used by regulators to ensure regulatory compliances. · It is used by private equity investors, venture capital funds to ascertain value of a company and to acquire stake at appropriate price. · It is used by top management to ascertain, if the company is moving in right direction or needs some course correction. In this book, author has tried to elaborate basic structure of balance sheet along with classification of assets and liabilities of a company. The book provides commonly used tools for interpretation of balance sheet information for use by bankers and investors.