Bilanca

Čak ako se i ne bavimo financijama, poznavanje bilance kao jednog od glavnih financijskih dokumenata koji pokazuju financijsko stanje neke kompanije vrlo je korisno.

A company’s balance sheet is a picture of a company’s financial condition at a single point in time. The information it gives is divided into details about its assets and liabilities.

An asset is everything that a company owns and that has the power to earn money for a business. Assets are divided into:

• Current assets: cash, securities, stock (materials, unfinished and finished goods), accounts receivable or debtors (money from sales the company has not yet received).

• Fixed assets: equipment, machinery, buildings or land it owns.

• Intangible assets: are not physical in nature and are therefore difficult to value. They involve things such as goodwill: a company’s good reputation with existing customers, patents, licenses etc.

All fixed assets (except land) are shown on the balance sheet at original cost minus any depreciation. Depreciation is accounting practice which takes into account the fact that some assets, such as machinery or equipment, lose value over time because they wear out and become obsolete. The value of the equipment is written down each year and written off completely at the end. The value of the asset at any time is its book value. This may or may not be its market value, i.e. the amount that it could be sold for at any time.

Everything that a business owes (company’s debts to suppliers, lenders, the tax authorities, etc) are its liabilities.

• Current or short-term liabilities are debts that have to be paid within a year: accounts payable or creditors is the amount a company owes to suppliers, overdrafts, interest payments, tax payable.

• Long-term liabilities are debts that have to be paid in more than a year from the date of the balance sheet, for example bank loans or bonds.

Companies which have their shares listed on the stock exchange need to include one more item in their balance sheet: shareholder’s equity. It is a net worth of the business after all of its obligations have been met. It includes the capital they have invested (share capital or equity) and the profits that have not been paid out in dividends to shareholders, but have been kept by the company as retained earnings.

INTANGIBLE ASSET = something owned by a company that does not have a physical substance, eg goodwill or a patent. A trade mark is one of the most important intangible assets.

Centar za poslovnu komunikaciju HalPet specijaliziran je za poučavanje poslovnih stranih jezika i komunikacijskih vještina. Deset godina iskustva i autentična metoda LPC (Learn – Practice – Communicate) temelj su kvalitete koju pruža Centar HalPet.

Tri čitatelja koji točno riješe test postavljen na Liderovim internetskim stranicama do 17. srpnja 2007. imaju priliku postati polaznici intenzivnoga ljetnog tečaja poslovnog engleskog jezika.