Accountancy Company Accounts and Analysis of Financial Statements Textbook for Class 12

Accountancy Company Accounts and Analysis of Financial Statements Textbook for Class 12.

Prelim:-

Chapter:- 1.  Accounting for Share Capital.

A company form of organisation is the third stage in the evolution of forms of organisation. Its capital is contributed by a large number of persons called shareholders who are the real owners of the company. But neither it is possible for all of them to participate in the management of the company nor considered desirable. Therefore, they elect a Board of Directors as their representative to manage the affairs of the company. In fact, all the affairs of the company are governed by the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956. A company means a company incorporated or registered under the Companies Act, 1956 or under any other earlier Companies Acts. According to Chief Justice Marshal, “a company is a person, artificial, invisible, intangible and existing only in the eyes of law. Being a mere creation of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it, either expressly or as incidental to its very existence”. A company usually raises its capital in the form ofshares (called share capital) and debentures (debt capital.) This chapter deals with the accounting for share capital of companies.

Chapter:- 2. Issue and Redemption of Debentures.

A company raises its capital by means of issue of shares. But the funds raised by the issue of shares are seldom adequate to meet their long-term financial needs of a company. Hence, most companies turn to raising long-term funds also through debentures which are issued either through the route of private placement or by offering the same to the public. The finances raised through debentures are also known as long-term debt. This chapter deals with the accounting treatment of issue and redemption of debentures and other related aspects.

 Chapter:- 3. Financial Statements of a Company.

Having understood how a company raises its capital, we have to learn the nature, objectives and types of financial statements it has to prepare including their contents, format, uses and limitations. The financial statements are the end products of accounting process. They are prepared following the consistent accounting concepts, principles, procedures and also the legal environment in which the business organisations operate. These statements are the outcome of the summarising process of accounting and are, therefore, the sources of information on the basis of which conclusions are drawn about the profitability and the financial position of a company. Hence, they need to be arranged in a proper form with suitable contents so that the shareholders and other users of financial statements can easily understand and use them in their economic decisions in a meaningful way.

Chapter :-4. Analysis of Financial Statements.

You have learnt about the financial statements of companies. Basically, these are summarised financial reports which provide the operating results and financial position of companies, and the detailed information contained therein is useful for assessing the operational efficiency and financial soundness of a company. This requires proper analysis and interpretation of such information for which a number of techniques (tools) have been developed by financial experts. In this chapter we will have an
overview of these techniques.

Chapter:- 5. Accounting Ratios.

Financial statements aim at providing financial information about a business enterprise to meet the information needs of the decision-makers. Financial statements prepared by a business enterprise in the corporate sector are published and are available to the decision-makers. These statements provide financial data which require analysis, comparison and interpretation for taking
decision by the external as well as internal users of accounting information. This act is termed as financial statement analysis. It is regarded as an integral and important part of accounting. As indicated in the previous chapter, the most commonly used techniques of financial statements, analysis are comparative statements, common size statements, trend analysis, accounting ratios and cash flow analysis. The first three have been discussed in detail in the previous chapter. This chapter covers the technique of accounting ratios for analysing the information contained in financial statements for assessing the solvency, efficiency and profitability of the enterprises.

Chapter:- 6. Cash Flow Statement.

Tiill now you have learnt about the financial statements being primarily inclusive of Position Statement (showing the financial position of an enterprise as on a particular date) and Income Statement (showing the result of the operational activities of an enterprise over a particular period). There is also a third important financial statement known as Cash flow statement, which shows inflows and outflows of the cash and cash equivalents. This statement is usually prepared by companies which comes as a tool in the hands of users of financial information to know about the sources and uses of cash and cash equivalents of an enterprise over a period of time from various activities of an enterprise. It has gained substantial importance in the last decade because of its practical utility to the users of financial information.