Acc 205 Financial Analysis Report

ACC205­Week 5 Final Paper (Wal­Mart Financial Analysis Report) 1

Rosie Collins
ACC 205: Principle of Accounting I
Traci West
March 31, 2014

ACC205­Week 5 Final Paper (Wal­Mart Financial Analysis Report) 2

Financial accounting reports, to include balance sheets and income statements provide accountants and the general public a snap shot of a company’s overall financial condition and possibly their future financial position. This financial information is very important to business owners, executive managers, private investors and employees. The information contained in a company’s financial report has several important uses. Managers and senior leaders of a business
Wal­Mart operates several different types of store formats, i.e. discount stores, supercenters, markets, express stores, and a large e­commerce online business web store online.
(Wal­Mart, 2012). Wal­Mart has retail stores in all fifty states to include Puerto Rico.
Additionally Wal­Mart has retail stores in fourteen other countries. Here is a list of the countries entirely owned by subsidiaries of Wal­Mart. Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United
Kingdom. Wal­Mart also has joint partnerships in China and India. Wal­Mart has majority owned retails subsidiaries in five Central American countries. Wal­Mart also provides bill payment, money orders, and check cashing financial services which also generate additional

ACC205­Week 5 Final Paper (Wal­Mart Financial Analysis Report)
The Common Stock Par value dropped from
$378M in 2010 to $342M in 2012.
As you can see collecting and preparing a horizontal analysis of Wal­Mart’s financial statement has helped in determining the ultimate financial direction of this large company. Let’s move on to another very helpful tool for financial analyst called the Ratio Analysis.
Ratio Analysis
Accountants and financial analyst use the ratio analysis to determine a company’s current business performance compared to past years of business performance. This analysis can be isolated to past quarter performance as well. Many times analyst or accountants can use this data to identify possible operational issues. Ratios are very good tools to compare other similar types of companies. Another ratio that is helpful to determine a company’s liquidity is the Current
Ratio. According to the President of Wal­Mart “the company has performed better than its competitors in the areas of job creation increased Return­on­Investment (ROI), better customer service, competitive pricing and much more. (Wal­Mart, 2012) In order for me to quantify