Profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow prepared so you and your lender can both see what's actually happening in the business.
Most financial statements get produced, emailed, and never discussed. The owner skims the bottom line and moves on. That's a waste, because a well-built set of statements is the most direct view you have of whether the business is working.
Preparation done right means more than exporting a report from the accounting software. Accounts get grouped so the statements are readable. Timing gets corrected so revenue and costs land in the same period. Baum's Accounting Services brings CFO experience from a mortgage bank and controller experience in construction to the work, and we prepare statements for Lexington-area companies the way a lender or an investor will actually read them.
The profit and loss tells you whether operations made money over a period. The balance sheet shows what you own and owe at a single moment, which is where lenders look first. The cash flow statement reconciles the two and explains the question that confuses owners most: why the P&L says you made money and the bank account says otherwise. That gap is usually receivables, inventory, or debt principal, none of which show up as expenses. Reading all three together is the only way to see the whole picture.
A default software export dumps every account in list order with no grouping and no context. Useful statements group accounts into meaningful categories so you can see cost of delivery separately from overhead. They include comparative columns against prior periods so change is visible. They apply accrual timing where it matters, so a job's revenue and its costs appear in the same month. And they come with the supporting schedules a lender will ask for anyway, which saves a round trip later.
When you're applying for a line of credit, an equipment loan, or a bonding increase, the lender is reading your statements for specific things: debt service coverage, working capital, leverage, and whether the numbers are internally consistent. Statements that don't tie together, or that show a balance sheet nobody has looked at in two years, raise questions you don't want to answer under time pressure. Having them prepared properly before you need them is far easier than assembling them during an application.
No. Audits and reviews are attest services that only a licensed CPA firm can perform, and this firm is not a CPA firm. What's prepared here are internally prepared management financial statements, which is what most lenders and owners need. If a formal audit or review is required, we can refer you to an outside CPA firm.
Monthly for most growing companies, because decisions happen monthly. Quarterly can work for stable businesses with low volume. Annual is really just a tax and compliance record. The right frequency depends on how fast your business changes and how often you're making decisions that need real numbers.
That's the point of doing this. Statements delivered without discussion tend to go unread. A review conversation covers what moved, what's worth watching, and what the numbers imply for the next few months. For clients who want that ongoing, fractional controller or CFO support goes deeper.
Other work in this area that tends to come up in the same conversation.
The account structure decides what your reports can tell you later. Yours gets built around your industry and the decisions you make.
Read moreXero configured, connected to your banks and apps, and managed month to month by someone who works in it regularly.
Read moreTransactions coded, accounts reconciled, and a closed set of books every month, so you're working from current numbers instead of a year-old file.
Read moreBook a consultation and we will show you what the first ninety days would look like.
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