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Presentation Of Financial Statements On Accounting Profits

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Question 1. Presentation of Financial Statements A. In evaluating a company should an investor rely more on accounting profits or cash flow. Advantages One advantage of firms using their accounting profits over their cash flows is that it is possible to legally manipulate the figures for accounting profits. This means that a firm whose cash flows look poor on paper can make themselves appear to be doing better with their accounting profits. The primary advantage to using cash flows over accounting profits is that the time value of money is taken into consideration with more reliance on cash flows. However, time value of money is usually ignored when calculating accounting profits alone. Disadvantages Using the accounting profit method of evaluating a company has a major disadvantage that it is more time consuming and complex. There is only one method to calculate to calculating cash flows; however, there are several different methods existing for calculating accounting profits. When calculating cash flows, non-cash items such as depreciation and amortisation are not taken into consideration. Depending on the firm 's financials, this could result in their accounting statements displaying lower profitability than using the accounting profit method. B. Discuss the changes in Equity disclosed in the half yearly report of The a2milk Company. According to the formula of Assets = Equity + Liabilities; assets and equity could increase while liabilities remain the same. The

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