#financial-statements
Financial Statements
Understand and prepare balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow reports
Closing Entries at Year-End: How to Zero Out Revenue and Expense Accounts and Roll Profit Into Retained Earnings
Master year-end closing entries: learn the four steps to zero revenue, expense, and dividend accounts, transfer net income via Income Summary to retained earnings (or capital), verify with a post-closing trial balance, and see how Beancount handles closing without manual entries.
Spotify Q2 2026 Earnings: 300 Million Premium Subscribers and a Record 30.1% Gross Margin Meet a Soft €670M Q3 Guide
Spotify's Q2 2026 report put revenue at EUR 4.2 billion (+33.3% year over year), crossed 300 million Premium subscribers for the first time, and set a record 30.1% gross margin — while the EUR 670 million Q3 operating-income guide landed roughly EUR 80 million below consensus. Every figure is reconciled in a public Beancount ledger covering FY2021 through FY2026Q2.
Airbnb FY2026 Q2 Earnings: $3.6B Revenue (+17%) and $816M Net Income Beat Tests Marketing Leverage
Airbnb's FY2026 Q2 revenue rose 16.5% to $3.6B and net income grew 27% to $816M, but sales and marketing jumped 26.6% — a double-entry breakdown of operating leverage, the ~16% take rate, and the $12.2B in customer funds behind the seasonal balance-sheet peak.
Apple's Strongest June Quarter Ever: $109.4B Revenue, $2.02 EPS, and Services and Mac Hit New June Records
Apple's fiscal Q3 2026 (June quarter) delivered $109.4B revenue (+16% YoY), $2.02 diluted EPS (+29%), and a 50.1% gross margin — roughly 2 points of it a one-time tariff refund worth $0.11 of EPS. iPhone, Mac and Services each set June quarter records, every geography grew double digits, and the full FY2021–FY2026Q3 income statements and balance sheets sit in a public Beancount ledger.
Related-Party Disclosures Under ASC 850: When Paying Your Spouse's LLC Needs a Footnote
ASC 850 requires four things in the footnote for every material related-party transaction — the nature of the relationship, a description, dollar amounts for each period presented, and any change in how terms were set — and it applies even when the price is fair. This guide identifies who counts as a related party for a small business (10%+ owners, officers, immediate family, and entities they control), shows a model two-paragraph footnote, and gives a 10-step year-end checklist plus a Beancount account structure that turns disclosure into a query.
The Sloan Ratio: How to Tell If Your Profits Are Real Cash or Just Accounting Accruals
The Sloan ratio divides the gap between net income and operating cash flow by total assets to show how much reported profit is accruals rather than cash. Includes the formula, the ±10% caution bands, and a worked example of a profitable agency where only 40 cents of each profit dollar arrived as operating cash.
Reading Your First P&L and Balance Sheet: A New Business Owner's Guide to the Two Reports That Answer "Am I Making Money?"
New business owners confuse cash in the bank with profit earned. Learn how to read your P&L and balance sheet together — revenue, COGS, gross margin, assets, liabilities, and equity — plus the seven bookkeeping mistakes that make beginners misread their own numbers.
Reading Your First P&L and Balance Sheet: A New Business Owner's Guide
Learn to read P&L and balance sheets to understand your business's profitability and financial position. A practical guide for business owners on why both reports matter and how to use them for smarter decisions.
Microsoft FY2026 Earnings: The $133B Profit Machine Now Spends $116B a Year on AI Infrastructure
Microsoft's FY2026: $331.8B revenue (+18%), a record $133.7B net income, Azure past $100B, and $115.9B of AI capex — nearly 35% of revenue — broken down as an auditable plain-text Beancount ledger.
What's Your Business Actually Worth in 2026? SDE and EBITDA Multiples by Industry
In Q1 2026 the median small business sold for 2.7x cash flow, but multiples range from the low end for restaurants to 6–10x EBITDA for SaaS and up to 8x for express car washes. How SDE vs. EBITDA, industry, owner dependence, and clean financial records determine what your business sells for.
What Is a Flash Report? A Weekly Early-Warning System for Small Business Finances
A flash report is a one-page, weekly summary of liquidity, productivity, and profitability metrics that surfaces cash problems weeks before the monthly close — critical when cash flow issues contribute to roughly 82% of small business failures. Here's what to include and how to build one in under 30 minutes a week.
Return on Equity (ROE) Explained: What It Measures, What Counts as Good, and How to Break It Down
Return on Equity (ROE) divides net income by owner's equity — a 15% ROE means the business earned 15 cents per dollar of the owner's capital. This guide covers healthy benchmarks (12–15% baseline, 15–20%+ strong), the three-part DuPont breakdown of margin, asset turnover, and leverage, and the pitfalls — debt-inflated returns, negative equity, one-time items — that distort the ratio.