Importance of Financial Statements:
As a whole, financial statements fulfil the following purpose, which makes them indispensable:
First, to scrutinize the ability of a business to generate cash and the sources and utilization of that cash.
Second, to ascertain whether a business has the capability to pay back its debts.
Third, to help track financial results on a trend line to spot any looming profitability issues.
Next, to help derive financial ratios from the statements that can indicate the condition of the business.
Lastly, to investigate the particulars of certain business transactions, as mentioned in the disclosures that accompany along with the statements.
If a business has plans to issue its financial statements to outside users such as investors or creditors, the financial statements should be ideally formatted in accordance with one of the major accounting frameworks. These frameworks allow for some leeway in how financial statements can be structured, so statements issued by different firms even in the same industry are likely to have somewhat different appearances. Financial statements that are being issued to outside parties may be audited to verify their accuracy.