Required Discussion: Find a Business Annual Report and Describe What You See

In our classes, we teach you how to prepare the basic four financial statements for a business – the Income Statement, Statement of Retained Earnings, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flows. In reality, a lot more than that may go into a business’s annual report.

The annual report for a large, publicly traded corporation may contain the following sections:

· Summary of general business information.

· Annual performance highlights.

· CEO’s letter to the shareholders.

· Management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A).

· Financial Statements

· Supporting notes, photos, and graphics.

· Auditor’s report.

· Financial information summary.

· Review of accounting policies.

Please go online and find the annual report for a large business. Please tell me what you see besides the financial statements. What kinds of things is the business is saying? How is your business doing? Are they doing well or not so well? What do they say about that? What kinds of accounting methods are they using?

Please also send a link to the financial statements so everyone can look at them. You must send us the link or attach a copy of the statements to get credit. Please find a different business than the other students. There are lots of them out there!

I think this could be fun and interesting.