Advantages And Limitations Of Financial Statement Analysis

1. What is the purpose of financial statement analysis? The purpose of financial statement analysis is to provide information used by the business, potential creditors and investors.

Financial ratio analysis is a valuable tool that allows one to assess the success, potential failure or future prospects of the company (Bazley 2012). The ratios are helpful in spotting useful trends that can indicate the warning signs of

Secondary information is collected for this case. This case study limited only one techniques of financial analysis that is Ratio Analysis and also taken a single company. Thus the conclusion of the analysis carried out in a professional manner will be able to correctly describe the evaluation of the company and to substantiate the user’s decisions.

Ratio analysis is the method used to calculate and interpret financial ratios to analyze and monitor the firm’s performance.

Financial statements are used to determine the business activities of a firm and the role of accounting analysis is to determine the accuracy and quality of the information provided. This analysis would look into the degree of its accounting figures captures its business reality through the policies used and its resulting noise, potential forecast errors and its impact on Myer’s profit.

Ratio analysis is a tool brought by individuals used to evaluate analysis of information in the financial statements of a business. The ratio analysis forms an essential part of the financial analysis which is a vital part in the business planning. There are 3 different ways of assessing businesses performance and these are: solvency, profitability and performance. Ratio analysis assists managers to work out the production of the company by figuring the profitability ratios. Also, the management can evaluate their revenues to check if their productivity. Thus, probability ratios are helpful to the company in evaluating its performance based on current earning. By measuring the solvency ratio, the companies are able to keep an

This paper describes a financial statement analysis project useful in both preparerbased and user-based introductory courses in financial accounting. The project

The building blocks of financial statement analysis include: Liquidity and Efficiency, Solvency, Profitability, Market Prospects.

Aerts and Walton (2013) expressed ratio analysis as connection between two elements of financial statements. According to them, ratios analysis allows to compare the incomparable elements in different companies. In other words, we may say that comparing profit on its own between two companies would not give a reliable conclusion on organisations’ profitability. If would simply ignore profit relationship with other financial elements like cost of goods, which itself affects the proportion of profit. This is where ratio analysis becomes a useful instrument. It allows us to draw the link between two different sales figures and two different cost of goods figures and eventually makes results comparable between two organisations. Lasher (2014) added that ratios are only valuable as a tool when they are compared with the ratios of other companies. To make investment decisions easier, we will compare industry averages later in the report.

Financial ratios are "just a convenient way to summarize large quantities of financial data and to compare firms' performance" (Brealey & Myer & Marcus, 2003, p. 450). Financial ratios are very useful tools in order to determine the health of a company, help managers to make decision, and help to compare companies that belong to the same industry in order to know about their performance.

Without subjecting these to data analysis, many fallaciousconclusions might be drawn concerning the financial condition of the enterprise. Financialstatement analysis is undertaken by creditors, investors and other financial statement users inorder to determine the credit worthiness and earning potential of an entity.

The calculation of ratios is the calculation technique for analyzing a company’s financial performance that divides or standardize one accounting measure by another economically relevant measure. Financial ratios can be used as a tool to demonstrate financial statement users for making valid comparisons of firm operating performance, over time for the same firm and between comparable companies. External investors are mostly interested in gaining insights about a firm’s profitability, asset management, liquidity, and solvency.

Firms and Companies include ‘Ratios’ in their external report to which it can be referred as ‘highlights’. Only with the help of ratios the financial statements are meaningful. It is therefore, not surprising that ratio analysis feature are prominently in the literature on financial management. According to Mcleary (1992) ratio means “an expression of a relationship between any two figures or groups of figures in the financial statements of an undertaking”.

Ratio analysis is the fundamental indicator of company’s performances for so many years; it is also can be seen as the very first step to measure a company’s performance along with its financial position. Moreover, ratio analysis has been researched and developed for many years, Bliss had presented the first coherent system of ratios, and he also stated that ratios are “indicator of the status of fundamental relationship within the business” Horrigan (1968). However there are some arguments on whether the ratio analysis is useful or not since to conduct these analyses will be costly to the company, also there are several limitations on how these ratios work. Therefore, the usefulness and the limitation of ratio analysis will be discussed further in this essay, with the use of easyJet’s annual report as examples.

The Purpose of Financial Statements The financial statements of a business are used to provide information about the status of the business, set performance targets and impose restrictions on the managers of the firm as well as provide an easier method for financial planning. The financial statements consist of the Profit and Loss Account, Balance Sheet and the Cash Flow Statement. There are four areas of information, which we can collect from a company's financial statements. They are: Ÿ