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Pretend that you are going to apply for a loan to put a swimming pool into your backyard.

You go to the bank asking to borrow money, and the banker insists that you give him a list of your current finances. After going home and looking over your statements, you pull out a blank sheet of paper and write down everything you have that is of value (your checking and savings account, mutual funds, house, and cars). Then, at the bottom of the sheet your write down all of your debt (the mortgage, car payments, and your student loan). You subtract everything you owe by all the stuff you have and come up with your net worth. Congratulations, you just created a balance sheet. Balance Sheets Required by the Securities and Exchange Commission Just as the bank asked you to put together a balance sheet to evaluate your credit-worthiness, the government requires companies to put them together several times a year for their shareholders. This allows current and potential investors to get a snapshot of a company's finances. Among other things, the balance sheet will show you the value of the stuff the company owns (right down to the telephones sitting on the desk of their employees), the amount of debt, how much inventory is in the corporate warehouse, and how much money the business has to work with in the short term. It is generally the first report you want to look at when valuing a company. Before you can analyze a balance sheet, you have to know how it is set-up.
Note: Unlike other financial statements, the balance sheet cannot cover a range of dates. In other words, it may be good "as of December 31, 2009", but can't cover from December 1 - December 31. This is because a balance sheet lists items such as cash on hand and inventory, which change daily.

The Three Parts of the Balance Sheet Every balance sheet is divided into three main parts - assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity.

Assets are anything that have value. Your house, car, checking account, and the antique china set your grandma gave you are all assets. Companies figure up the dollar value of everything they own and put it under the asset side of the balance sheet. Liabilities are the opposite of assets. They are anything that costs a company money. Liabilities include monthly rent payments, utility bills, the mortgage on the building, corporate credit card debt, and any bonds the company has issued. Shareholder equity is the difference between assets and liability; it tells you the "book value", or what is left for the stockholders after all the debt has been paid.

Every balance sheet must "balance". The total value of all assets must be equal to the combined value of the all liabilities and shareholder equity (i.e., if a lemonade stand had $10 in assets and $3 in liabilities, the shareholder equity would be $7. The assets are $10, the liabilities + shareholder equity = $10 [$3 + $7]). What Does a Balance Sheet Look Like? Below is an example of what a typical balance sheet looks like. I've taken it from an old Coca-Cola annual report and, for the sake of space, removed lines that had a $0 value. Don't worry, though, we will still discuss each line you are likely to encounter when reading a balance sheet, whether for small business or a large publicly traded corporation. Sample Coca-Cola Balance Sheet Coca-Cola Company Consolidated Balance Sheet - January 31, 2001

Current Assets Cash & Equivalents Short Term Investments Receivables Inventories Pre-Paid Expenses Total Current Assets Long Term Assets Property, Plant, & Equipment Goodwill Total Assets Current Liabilities Accounts Payable Short Term Debt Total Current Liabilities Long-Term Liabilities Long-Term Debt Other Liabilities Deferred Long Term Liability Charges Total Liabilities Shareholders' Equity Common Stock Retained Earnings Treasury Stock Capital Surplus Other Stockholder Equity Total Stockholder Equity

Dec. 31, 2001 $1,819,000,000 $73,000,000 $1,757,000,000 $1,066,000,000 $1,905,000,000 $6,620,000,000 $8,129,000,000 $4,168,000,000 $1,917,000,000 $20,834,000,000

Dec. 31, 1999 $1,611,000,000 $201,000,000 $1,798,000,000 $1,076,000,000 $1,794,000,000 $6,480,000,000 $8,916,000,000 $4,267,000,000 $1,960,000,000 21,623,000,000

$9,300,000,000 $21,000,000 $9,321,000,000

$4,483,000,000 $5,373,000,000 $9,856,000,000

$835,000,000 $1,004,000,000 $358,000,000

$854,000,000 $902,000,000 $498,000,000

$11,518,000,000 $12,110,000,000

$870,000,000 $21,265,000,000

$867,000,000 $20,773,000,000

($13,293,000,000) ($13,160,000,000) $3,196,000,000 ($2,722,000,000) $9,316,000,000 $2,584,000,000 ($1,551,000,000) $9,513,000,000

The first thing listed under the asset column on the balance sheet is something called "current assets". This is where companies list all of the stuff that can be converted into cash in a short period of time, usually a year or less. Because these assets are easily turned into cash, they are sometimes referred to as "liquid". They normally consist of: Cash and Cash Equivalents Cash and Cash Equivalents is the amount of money the company has in bank accounts, savings bonds, certificates of deposit, and money market funds. It tells you how much money is available to the business immediately. How much should a company keep on the balance sheet? Generally

speaking, the more cash on hand the better. Not only does a decent cash hoard give management the ability to pay dividends and repurchase shares, but it can provide extra wiggle-room when times get bad. There are some cases where cash on the balance sheet isn't necessarily a good thing. If a company is not able to generate enough profits internally, they may turn to a bank and borrow money. The money sitting on the balance sheet as cash may actually be borrowed money. To find out, you are going to have to look at the amount of debt a company has (we will be discussing this later on in the lesson). The moral: You probably won't be able to tell if a company is weak based on cash alone; the amount of debt is far more important. Short Term Investments on the Balance Sheet These are investments that the company plans to sell shortly or can be sold to provide cash. Short term investments aren't as readily available as money in a checking account, but they provide added cushion if some immediate need were to arise. Short Term Investments become important when a company has so much cash sitting around that it has no qualms about tying some of it up in slightly longer-term investment vehicles (such as bonds which have maturities of less than one year). This allows the business to earn a slightly higher interest rate than if they stuck the cash in a corporate savings account. From time to time, companies become known for their legendary cash hoards. A decade ago, Microsoft was known for its $5.25 billion in cash and $32.973 billion in short term investments. Berkshire Hathaway has kept as much as $40+ billion in cash on hand.

Accounts Receivable as a Balance Sheet Asset Receivables are also sometimes known as accounts receivables and represents money that is owed to a company by its customers. How Accounts Receivable Are Recorded on the Balance Sheet Here's how it works: Let's say Wal-Mart wants to order a new DVD which is being released by Warner Brothers. Wal-Mart orders 500,000 copies for its stores. Warner Brothers receives the order, and within a week, ships the DVDs to one of Wal-Mart's warehouses. Included in the shipment is a bill (let's say WB charged Wal-Mart $5 per DVD for half a million copies - that's $2.5 million). Warner Brothers has already sent the movies to Wal-Mart, even though Wal-Mart hasn't paid a penny. In essence, Wal-Mart is buying on credit and promising to pay WB's the $2.5 million. The $2.5 million would go on Warner Brother's balance sheet as accounts receivables. Accounts Receivable Terms Generally a company that sells a product on credit sets a term for its accounts receivable. The term is the number of days customers must pay their bill before they are charged a late fee or turned over to a collection agency (most terms are, 30, 60 or 90 days). If Warner Brothers sold the DVDs to Wal-Mart on a 30 day term, Wal-Mart must pay its bill during that time. While accounts receivable are good, they can bring serious problems to a business if they aren't handled properly. What if Wal-Mart went bankrupt or simply didn't pay Warner Brothers? WB would then be forced to write down its receivables on the balance sheet by $2.5 million. This is what is called a delinquent account. Normally, companies build up something called a reserve to prepare for situations such as this. Reserves are set amounts of money that are taken out of the profits each year and put into an account specifically designed to act as a buffer against possible

loses the company may incur. (Reserves are touched on in Part 29). When customers don't pay their bills, companies can take money out of the reserve they had built up to pay back suppliers. Most companies, however, don't actually set aside the money they charge to reserves, but instead just write it off the income statement. In other words, you can't "dip into the reserves" in the traditional sense unless you were dealing with an extremely conservative management that actually believed a set percentage of sales should be put aside in safe cash equivalents. The receivable turns or receivable turnover is a great financial ratio to learn when you are analyzing a business or a stock because common sense tells you the faster a company collects its accounts receivables, the better. The sooner customers pay their bills, the sooner a company can put the cash in the bank, pay down debt, or start making new products. There is also a smaller chance of losing money to delinquent accounts. Fortunately, there is a way to calculate the number of days it takes for a business to collect its receivables. The formula looks like this: Receivable Turns Calculation Credit Sales1 Average Accounts Receivables
1: Credit sales are found on the income statement, not the balance sheet

Let's look at an example. I've built a table at the bottom of this page that will provide you with the numbers you need for a fictional company, H.F. Beverages. An Example of Calculating Receivable Turns H.F. Beverages is a major manufacturer of soft drinks and juice beverages. It sells to supermarkets and convenience stores across the country on a 30 day term. To see if customers are paying on time, we need to look for the income statement. It is normally found within a page or two of the balance sheet in the annual report or 10K. With the income statement in front of you, look for an item called "Credit Sales" (if you can't find it, there is an item called "Total Sales" which is acceptable but not as accurate). In 2009, H.F. Beverages reported credit sales of $15,608,300. If we look at the excerpt from its balance sheet (above), we will see that in 2009, it had $1,183,363 in receivables and in 2008, $1,178,423. We need to find out the average amount of receivables H.F. had in 2009, so we would take $1,1873,363 + $1,178,423 and divide it by 2. The answer is $1,180,893. Plug the two numbers into the receivable turn formula. Credit Sales of $15,608,300 Average Receivables = $1,180,893 The answer, called receivable turns by financial analysts and professional investors, is 13.2173. This means that H.F. Beverages collects its accounts receivable 13.2173 times per year. Once you calculate this number, finding out the number of days it takes for customers to pay their bills is simple. Since there are 365 days in a year and the company gets 13.2173 turns per year, take 365 13.2173. The answer is the number of days it takes the average customer to pay (in H.F.'s case, we come up with 27.61). This means the company is doing a good job managing its accounts receivable because customers aren't exceeding the 30 day policy. Had the answer been greater than 30, you would have been wise to try to find out why there were so many late payments, which could be a sign of trouble. (Keep in mind you will need to read through the company's reports to find out what its collection deadline is. Not all companies require their customers to pay within 30 days).

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