Question

Builder's Outlet just hired a new chief financial officer. To get a feel for the company, she wants to compare the firm's sales and costs over the past three years to determine if any trends are present and also determine where the firm might need to make changes. Which one of the following statements will best suit her purposes?Income statementBalance sheetCommon-size income statementCommon-size balance sheetStatement of cash flows

Answer 1

The answer is: Income statement

Step-by-step explanation:

As she wants to get information on sales and costs, the Income statement is the statement that she should looking for. With the Balance sheet statement, it only shows information on the financial position reporting the firm's assets, liabilities and owner's equity at a specific point in time rather than the sales and costs firgures during the reporting period.

Furthermore, she should opt for Income statement rather than the common-size income statement because the common-size income statement hardly illustrates any trend during the recent years/ reporting periods, instead, it is only shown each revenue and cost items as percentage of total sales in a specific period.

In the income statement, there should be enough information for the new CFO to find trends on revenues and costs (if any) because the revenue and cost items is detailed enough and at least it should be given the comparision between sales & costs of the reporting period versus the firgures of the previous reporting period.