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Understanding Balance Sheet Statement (Part 1)




The balance sheet equation

While the P&L statement gives us information pertaining to the profitability of the company, the balance sheet gives us information pertaining to the assets, liabilities, and the shareholders equity. The P&L statement as you understood, discusses about the profitability for the financial year under consideration, hence it is good to say that the P&L statement is a standalone statement. The balance sheet however is prepared on a flow basis, meaning, it has financial information pertaining to the company right from the time it was incorporated. Thus while the P&L talks about how the company performed in a particular financial year; the balance sheet on the other hand discusses how the company has evolved financially over the years.

Have a look at the balance sheet of Amara Raja Batteries Limited (ARBL):





As you can see the balance sheet contains details about the assets, liabilities, and equity.

We had discussed about assets in the previous chapter. Assets, both tangible and intangible are owned by the company. An asset is a resource controlled by the company, and is expected to have an economic value in the future. Typical examples of assets include plants, machinery, cash, brands, patents etc. Assets are of two types, current and non-current, we will discuss these later in the chapter.

Liability on the other hand represents the company’s obligation. The obligation is taken up by the company because the company believes these obligations will provide economic value in the long run. Liability in simple words is the loan that the company has taken and it is therefore obligated to repay back.  Typical examples of obligation include short term borrowing, long term borrowing, payments due etc. Liabilities are of two types namely current and non-current. We will discuss about the kinds of liabilities later on in the chapter.

In any typical balance sheet, the total assets of company should be equal to the total liabilities of the company. Hence,
Assets = Liabilities

The equation above is called the balance sheet equation or the accounting equation. In fact this equation depicts the key property of the balance sheet i.e the balance sheet should always be balanced. In other word the Assets of the company should be equal to the Liabilities of the company. This is because everything that a company owns (Assets) has to be purchased either from either the owner’s capital or liabilities.

Owners Capital is the difference between the Assets and Liabilities. It is also called the ‘Shareholders Equity’ or the ‘Net worth’. Representing this in the form of an equation :


Share holders equity = Assets – Liabilities


.A quick note on shareholders’ funds

As we know the balance sheet has two main sections i.e. the assets and the liabilities. The liabilities as you know represent the obligation of the company. The shareholders’ fund, which is integral to the liabilities side of the balance sheet, is highlighted in the snapshot below. Many people find this term a little confusing.



If you think about it, on one hand we are discussing about liabilities which represent the obligation of the company, and on the other hand we are discussing the shareholders’ fund which represents the shareholders’ wealth. This is quite counter intuitive isn’t it? How can liabilities and shareholders’ funds appear on the ‘Liabilities’ side of balance sheet? After all the shareholders funds represents the funds belonging to its shareholders’ which in the true sense is an asset and not really a liability.

To make sense of this, you should change the perceptive in which you look at a company’s financial statement. Think about the entire company as an individual, whose sole job is run its core operation and to create wealth to its shareholders’. By thinking this way, you are in fact separating out the shareholders’ (which also includes its promoters) and the company. With this new perspective, now think about the financial statement. You will appreciate that, the financial statements is a statement published by the company (which is an entity on its own) to communicate to the world about its financial well being.

This also means the shareholders’ funds do not belong to the company as it rightfully belongs to the company’s shareholders’. Hence from the company’s perspective the shareholders’ funds are an obligation payable to shareholders’. Hence this is shown on the liabilities side of the balance sheet.
 
 Read next blog under the heading (The liability side of balance sheet)

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