Making a Profit

Accounts, Bookkeeping and Payroll can be a burden to small business. This new series of blogs from Nottingham Accounting Solutions aims at making Accounts, Bookkeeping and Payroll a little clearer.

Making a Profit

Accountants are responsible for preparing two primary types of financial statements for a business. The Profit & Loss statement reports the profit (or loss) -making activities of the business and the bottom-line profit or loss for a specified period. The Balance Sheet reports the financial position of the business at a specific point in time, often the last day of the period. A Cash Flow forecast predicts what will /may happen in the future with any impact that may occur due to changing circumstances.

Everyone knows profit is a good thing. It's what our economy is founded on. It doesn't sound like such a big deal. Make more money than you spend to sell or manufacture products. But of course nothing's ever really simple, is it?

You read a P & L report from the top line to the bottom line. Every step of the income statement reports the deduction of an expense. The income statement also reports changes in assets and liabilities as well, so that if there's a revenue increase, it's either because there's been an increase in assets or a decrease in a company's liabilities. If there's been an increase in the expense line, it's because there's been either a decrease in assets or an increase in liabilities.

Net worth is also referred to as owners' equity in the business. They're not exactly interchangeable. Net worth expresses the total of assets less the liabilities. Owners' equity refers to who owns the assets after the liabilities are satisfied.

These shifts in assets and liabilities are important to owners and executives of a business because it's their responsibility to manage and control such changes. Making a profit in a business involves several variable, not just increasing the amount of cash that flows through a company, but management of other assets as well.

Nottingham Accounting Solutions Ltd offer accounts, bookkeeping and payroll services in the Nottingham and Mansfield area as well as Sage sales, set-up and 1 - to - 1 training on Sage accounts and Sage payroll. So why not take a look at www.nottingham-accounting-solutions.co.uk