Balance sheet
Financial Accounting glossary · The Accounting Cycle & Financial Statements
Definition
Financial statement presenting assets, liabilities, and equity at a point in time; also called the statement of financial position.
Balance sheet in plain English
The balance sheet is a financial snapshot of a business on one specific day — like a photo of your finances taken at midnight. It lists what the company owns (assets), what it owes (liabilities), and what's left over for the owners (equity). It's called a "balance" sheet because it always balances: assets = liabilities + equity, meaning everything a company owns was paid for either with borrowed money or the owners' money. (Its formal name is the "statement of financial position.")
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