“The Cash Flow Statement And The Profit And Loss a

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Discuss the statement: “The cash flow statement and the profit and loss account measure quite different aspects of a company’s performance and are based on different rules and concepts.” (1377 words) In the financial statement, cash flow statement and the profit and loss account have different roles. Both of them can assess the financial performance of a company, but in different aspect. Anyway, they have their own strengths and weaknesses on this. This doesn’t mean that they are contradictory or compete with each other. In contrary, they are complementary. The strength of cash flow statement can relieve the weaknesses of the profit and loss account, and vice versa. Firstly, about the profit and loss account, it concentrates on the turnover, the cost of sales, and the profit. This is more suitable for measuring the profitability of a company. For example, dividing the net profit before interest and tax by sales, we can calculate the return on sales (profit margin). With the help of balance sheet, we can also calculate the return on capital employed and the asset turnover. Through calculating the profitability ratio of a company, we can assess the financial performance of a company easily, especially for the large or international company. Except of calculating the profitability ratio, comparing with the cash flow statement, the profit and loss account is more relevance, which matches the revenues and the expenses within the same period. For example, we will use one of the depreciation methods to dividing the long-term fixed cost into different periods. This action can bring all relevant accounts in the same period of time. However, when we are matching the revenues or debts, estimation are inevitable. In the above example, when we divide the long-term fixed cost, we may choose straight line depreciation method; reducing balance method or sum of digits method.

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