Purpose of Assignment
The purpose of this assignment is to help you understand the basics of financial statement analysis related to the assets section of the balance sheet data interpretation and how financial information is obtained to understand how a company accounts for its long-lived assets.
Assignment Steps
Resources:Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision Making
Note: The financial statements of Apple Inc.are presented in Appendix A ofFinancial Accounting. Instructions for accessing and using the company’s complete annual report including the notes to the financial statements are also provided in Appendix A.
Completea 1050-word summary of findings and recommendations from the following questions:
Usethe Week 2 Excelspreadsheet to show your work andsubmitwith your summary.
Use this Appendix As well:
pecimen Financial Statements: Apple Inc.
Once each year a corporation communicates to its stockholders and other interested parties by issuing a complete set of audited financial statements. Theannual report as this communication is called summarizes the financial results of the company’s operations for the year and its plans for the future. Many annual reports are attractive multicolored glossy public relations pieces containing pictures of corporate officers and directors as well as photos and descriptions of new products and new buildings. Yet the basic function of every annual report is to report financial information almost all of which is a product of the corporation’s accounting system.
The content and organization of corporate annual reports have become fairly standardized. Excluding the public relations part of the report (pictures products etc.) the following are the traditional financial portions of the annual report:
The official SEC filing of the annual report is called aForm 10K which often omits the public relations pieces found in most standard annual reports. On the following pages we presentApple Inc.’s financial statements taken from the company’s 2014 Form 10K. To access Apple’s Form 10K including notes to the financial statements follow these steps: