Introduction to final accounts

Introduction to final accounts

Business entities raise funds, acquire assets and incur various expenses for the purpose of carrying on business operations and earning income from such operations. These transactions are first recorded in the journal and then classified under common heads in the ledger. Preparation of trial balance from ledger balances helps to verify the arithmetical accuracy of entries made in the books of accounts, but it is not the end in itself. The business entities are interested in knowing periodically the results of business operations carried on and the financial soundness of the business. In other words, they want to know the profitability and the financial position of the business. These can be ascertained by preparing the final accounts or financial statements. The final accounts are usually prepared at the end of the accounting period on the basis of balances of ledger accounts shown by the trial balance.

The final accounts or financial statements include the following:

i.               Income Statement or Trading and Profit and Loss Account and

ii.               Position Statement or Balance Sheet.

The purposes of preparing the financial statements are:

i.            To ascertain the financial performance of an enterprise and

ii.            To ascertain the financial position of an enterprise.

The income statement and balance sheet are prepared for these purposes respectively. Income statement gives the manner in which the profit or loss for an accounting period is arrived at. The revenues earned and expenses incurred to earn the revenues during the period are shown in the income statement under appropriate heads as per matching principle. All the nominal accounts and accounts relating to goods during an accounting period are to be considered only in the relevant accounting period and are not to be carried forward. Moreover, only these items are to be compared for determining the financial performance. Hence, at the close of the accounting period, all nominal accounts (i.e. expenses, losses, revenues, gains, purchases, purchases returns, sales and sales returns) are to be closed by transferring to the income statement or trading and profit and loss account.

While transferring the items, it is desirable that the results of buying and selling of goods and the results of overall operations and financial performance are given separately. Hence, income statement is divided into two parts. The first part, i.e., trading account shows the results of buying and selling and the second part shows the results of overall financial performance. The second part may also be presented in such a manner to give the operating results and overall financial performance separately. All the direct expenses and items relating to goods are transferred to trading account which is the first part of income statement. All indirect expenses and losses and indirect incomes and gains are transferred to profit and loss account along with the net result of trading account.