Financial Statements

January 31, 2017

Should Your Let Your Clients (Or Your Staff) See Your Financials?

Last spring, Joel Gascoigne realized he’d made a big mistake. He’s the CEO of Buffer, a social media management company, and business was doing so well that he aggressively staffed up — going from 34 to 94 employees in just more than a year. But although Buffer was still bringing in $875,000 a month, the increased salary burden was eating up all that money and more. “We didn’t get the productivity impact or growth we thought we might get from hiring that many people,” says Gascoigne. Buffer was likely to be broke in five months.   So in June 2016, he laid off 10 recent hires. Then the 29-year-old CEO faced an even more daunting challenge: He’d have to explain […]
September 29, 2015

Why Pay Attention to Financial Statements?

The Diversity of Financial Reporting  Don’t expect financial statements to fit into a single mold. Many articles and books on financial statement analysis take a one-size-fits-all approach. The less-experienced investor is going to get lost when he or she encounters a presentation of accounts that falls outside the mainstream or so-called “typical” company. Simply remember that the diverse nature of business activities results in a diversity of financial statement presentations. This is particularly true of the balance sheet; the income and cash flow statements are less susceptible to this phenomenon. The Challenge of Understanding Financial Jargon The lack of any appreciable standardization of financial reporting terminology complicates the understanding of many financial statement account entries. This circumstance can be confusing […]