Company Performance

Companies need to know how they are performing in order to analyse problems, find solutions and make plans for the future. Management accounts provide data about operational efficiency and financial accounts give information about financial performance. These tell the company not only how much it is selling, or how much revenue it is receiving, but also what its costs are - how much it has to pay for the different things that it needs in order to operate. With this information a company can then calculate how much money it has made (profits) or how much it has lost (losses) during a specific period. Listed companies, whose shares are sold on the stock exchange, have to present their accounts to the public in an annual report.