In plain English
A company is a box. Money goes in, money goes out, and things of value sit inside the box. The balance sheet photographs what is inside the box today; the income statement films what happened over the year; the cash flow statement counts the notes that actually moved.
The advanced view
Accrual accounting deliberately breaks the link between recognition and settlement so that performance is matched to the period that earned it. That creates accruals — receivables, payables, inventory, deferred revenue, provisions — and every accrual is a timing bet by management. The cash flow statement is the reconciliation of those bets back to reality, which is why analysts run the indirect method backwards to find where accruals are building up.
Everything in finance starts with reading the three financial statements. The balance sheet is a snapshot of what a company owns (assets), what it owes (liabilities) and the residual belonging to shareholders (equity) at a point in time — assets = liabilities + equity, always. The income statement measures performance over a period: revenue minus expenses yields net income. The cash flow statement reconciles net income to actual cash generated, split into operating, investing and financing. Net income is an opinion; cash flow is a fact.
You must be able to trace a transaction through all three statements. Buy equipment for 1M with cash: the balance sheet shows equipment up 1M and cash down 1M (net zero change in assets); the income statement is unaffected at purchase because depreciation hits later; the cash flow statement shows −1M in investing. This three-statement linkage is the foundation of every financial model.
Key ratios to internalise: ROE (net income / equity) measures return to shareholders, ROA (net income / total assets) measures how efficiently assets generate profit, and ROIC (NOPAT / invested capital) strips out capital structure and measures operating efficiency — the ratio that connects most directly to value creation. DuPont decomposition breaks ROE into margin × turnover × leverage, which tells you where profitability actually comes from.
Core identities
Assets = Liabilities + Equity ROE = Net income / Equity ROIC = NOPAT / Invested capital DuPont: ROE = (NI/Sales) × (Sales/Assets) × (Assets/Equity)
Essential vocabulary
- EBITDA
- Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. A proxy for operating cash generation, widely used in multiples but misleading because it ignores capex.
- Working capital
- Current assets minus current liabilities. Measures short-term liquidity; changes in it hit cash flow directly.
- Accrual vs. cash accounting
- Accrual recognises revenue when earned and expenses when incurred; cash accounting records when money moves. All public companies use accrual.
- Goodwill
- The excess paid over fair value of net assets in an acquisition. Sits on the balance sheet and is impaired if the acquired business underperforms.
- Deferred revenue
- Cash received for services not yet delivered. A liability, not revenue. Common in SaaS; converts as the service is provided.
Strategy connection
Financial statements encode strategy. High gross margins with heavy R&D (Ericsson) means differentiation. Thin margins with massive asset turnover (ICA Gruppen) means cost leadership. Reading statements through a strategic lens is what separates an analyst from a bookkeeper.
Intuition
Think of the three statements as one story told three ways. The balance sheet is the stock of capital, the income statement is the accrual view of a period, and the cash flow statement is the truth about money. Whenever those three disagree, the disagreement is the insight: profit without cash means working capital or capex is eating the business; cash without profit usually means depreciation of an old asset base or deferred revenue arriving early.
Common pitfalls
- ×Reading EBITDA as cash flow. It ignores capex and working capital, the two places growth consumes cash.
- ×Comparing ROE across companies with different leverage — use ROIC when you want the operating story.
- ×Mixing period-end and average balance-sheet figures in a ratio, which distorts fast-growing companies.
- ×Forgetting that a write-down hits the income statement but not cash.
Worked example — profit up, cash down
Step 1 of 5
- 1Revenue 500, EBIT 60, D&A 25, tax 25%
Why it works
Double entry works because every transaction has two sides: a source of value and a use of it. Assets = liabilities + equity is not a rule imposed on companies, it is an identity — you cannot own something without either owing it or having funded it. Any ratio you build on top inherits that identity, which is why decompositions like DuPont are exact rather than approximate.
How it is used — trace one transaction through all three statements
Step 1 of 5
- 1Sell goods for 100 on credit; the goods cost 60.
Deeper
Deeper: ROIC, DuPont and the value-creation test
ROIC = NOPAT ÷ invested capital, where NOPAT = EBIT × (1 − t) and invested capital = total assets − non-interest-bearing current liabilities (equivalently equity + net debt). Because it strips out capital structure, ROIC is the number that connects accounting to value: if ROIC > WACC the company creates value; if ROIC < WACC it destroys value however healthy the reported profit looks.
DuPont explains the level. Three factors: ROE = net margin × asset turnover × equity multiplier. Five factors: ROE = tax burden × interest burden × operating margin × asset turnover × equity multiplier, which isolates whether a change came from operations, financing or tax.
Growth only matters if the spread is positive. Value created ≈ invested capital × (ROIC − WACC), and growing a business with ROIC below WACC destroys value faster.
Must know cold
- ✓Assets = liabilities + equity; net income flows to retained earnings.
- ✓NOPAT = EBIT × (1 − t); invested capital = equity + net debt.
- ✓ROIC > WACC is the quantitative signature of a durable advantage.
- ✓EBITDA ignores capex and working capital — the two places growth consumes cash.
More vocabulary
- Accrual vs. cash accounting
- Accrual recognises revenue when earned and cost when incurred; cash accounting when money moves. Public companies use accrual.
- Maintenance vs. growth capex
- Maintenance keeps current capacity; growth expands it. Only maintenance is a true cost of the current earnings.
- Working capital
- Current assets minus current liabilities. Fast growth usually burns it.
- Goodwill
- Premium over fair value of net assets in a deal; impaired when the acquisition disappoints.
Exercises
Try each one on paper before revealing the worked solution.
Exercise 1
Revenue 500, COGS 300, SG&A 80, D&A 30, interest 15, tax 22%. Assets 800, equity 450, non-interest current liabilities 100, debt 250. Compute EBITDA, EBIT, net income, NOPAT, invested capital, ROIC, ROE and the DuPont split.
Exercise 2
The company issues 50 of bonds at 4% and buys a brand (intangible) for 50, amortised straight-line over 10 years. Walk through all three statements at the deal and over year one. Tax 22%.
Exercise 3
Two companies report 18% ROE. A: margin 12%, turnover 0.5, multiplier 3.0. B: margin 4%, turnover 2.25, multiplier 2.0. Which would you rather own going into a recession?