The balance sheet is one of the principal statements comprising a set of accounts, showing the financial state of affairs of an organization on a given date, usually the last day of an accounting period. A balance sheet has three main headings: assets, liabilities, and capital. The assets must always equal the sum of the liabilities and the capital, as the statement can be looked at in either of two ways: (1) as a statement of the organization's wealth, in which case the assets less the liabilities equal the capital (the amount of wealth attributable to the proprietors); or (2) as a statement of how the assets have been funded, i.e. partly by borrowing (the liabilities) and partly by the proprietors (the capital). Although a
balance sheet balances, i.e. its two sides are equal, it is actually so named since it comprises balances from the accounts in the ledgers. Research Balance Sheet
 
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