Assignment: Analyzing Annual Reports
Just like a yearly physical examination can provide clues to your physical health an annual report provides clues to the overall financial health of an organization in a given time period. Just as some health conditions are not immediately detected by a physical examination or may appear shortly after a yearly exam the same can be said for challenges an organization may be facing financially.
For example an aggressive competitor may be currently taking sales away from an organizations stable customer base yet this competitor may not have existed at the conclusion of the fiscal year that the annual report information represents. Nonetheless it is important to be able to analyze the information that you do have while considering new information that might change the current financial health of an organization.
For this Assignment your Instructor has given you links to two annual reports. Examine the Table of Contents or Index in each annual report and it will help you locate the items listed below. The auditors opinion usually is found right after the financial statements but it might be located before them. The footnotes to the financial statements are located immediately following the financial statements.
Then compare the two annual reports in terms of:
The Assignment: