In British English, including United Kingdom company law, financial statements are often referred to as accounts, although the term financial statements is also used, particularly by accountants.

Financial statements provide an overview of a business' financial condition in both short and long term. There are four basic financial statements:

1. Balance sheet: also referred to as statement of financial position or condition, reports on a company's assets, liabilities, and net equity as of a given point in time.
2. Income statement: also referred to as Profit and Loss statement (or a "P&L"), reports on a company's income, expenses, and profits over a period of time.
3. Statement of retained earnings: explains the changes in a company's retained earnings over the reporting period.
4. Statement of cash flows: reports on a company's cash flow activities, particularly its operating, investing and financing activities.

For large corporations, these statements are often complex and may include an extensive set of notes to the financial statements and management discussion and analysis. The notes typically describe each item on the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement in further detail. Notes to financial statements are considered an integral part of the financial statements.

Purpose of financial statements

"The objective of financial statements is to provide information about the financial position, performance and changes in financial position of an enterprise that is useful to a wide range of users in making economic decisions." Financial statements should be understandable, relevant, reliable and comparable. Reported assets, liabilities and equity are directly related to an organization's financial position. Reported income and expenses are directly related to an organization's financial performance.

Financial statements are intended to be understandable by readers who have "a reasonable knowledge of business and economic activities and accounting and who are willing to study the information diligently."

• Owners and managers require financial statements to make important business decisions that affect its continued operations. Financial analysis are then performed on these statements to provide management with a more detailed understanding of the figures. These statements are also used as part of management's annual report to the stockholders.

• Employees also need these reports in making collective bargaining agreements (CBA) with the management, in the case of labor unions or for individuals in discussing their compensation, promotion and rankings.