Managerial Accounting

To begin with, financial statements should give a complete picture of the financial condition of the organization for a specific period. Users of financial statements include current and potential investors, employees, creditors, suppliers and other commercial counterparties, customers, government agencies, the public and other interested users. They use financial statements to meet various information needs, including:

· investors (capital providers and their advisers) are interested in information that will help determine whether to buy, hold or sell shares, what are the risks associated with the investment, and the return on the investment (Tad.L, 2002). Shareholders are interested in information that will allow them to assess the ability of the organization to pay dividends;

· employees and their representatives are interested in information about the stability and profitability of employers, the ability of the organization to provide them with wages, social benefits and opportunities for further work;

· lenders are interested in information that can determine whether loans and interest due will be paid on time;

· suppliers and other commercial counterparties are interested in information that enables them to determine whether the amount owed to them will be paid on time;

· clients are interested in information about the continuity of the organization, especially when they have long-term agreements or are dependent on the organization;

· governments and government agencies are interested in the information needed to regulate organizations, determine tax policies, and calculate national income and other similar statistics;

· the public is interested in information about the directions of development and achievements of the organization, its areas of activity (White, I., Sondhi, C., Fried, D., 2002).

Management is also interested in the information contained in the financial statements. However, the management of the organization has access to additional management and financial information that helps planning, decision-making and control. The form and content of such additional information shall be determined by the management of the organization (Walther, L. M. & Skousen, C.J., 2009).

As for my personal experience, for the head of the trading network "Sulpak", in which I previously worked, the cash flow statement is not of great interest. Typically, cash management occurs in accordance with the requirements of the CFO and in the presence of serious problems with the turnover of capital and significant deviations. At Sulpak, one of the most requested reports was the report on margin and gross profit by product lines. It was formed weekly and was valuable because it allowed to see the dynamics of gross profit and margin of each product line of the enterprise in comparison with the budget and last year. I believe that for a trading company, managing margin/gross profit through such a report is a task of paramount importance, since the level of marginality has a significant impact on the amount of operating leverage and, as a consequence, on the profitability of the company's net profit. The report, which I would also add to the list of mandatory, is a report on sales in natural terms (pieces/packages/tons/cubic meters, etc.). This report gives the head of the trading company a clear picture of the dynamics of sales and allows to compare different periods, excluding the impact of pricing policy. In my opinion, the analysis of sales only in monetary terms is not enough.

In conclusion, we can conclude that the financial statement is a multifaceted tool for interacting with users, which allows both to convey strategic information to the financial community first hand and to influence the image and reputation of the company as a whole (Heisinger, K., & Hoyle, J. B., 2012).

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