A company's assets consist of items such as cash, buildings, equipment and patents. They are a company’s resources with which it generates sales and profits. The amount of a company’s assets changes over time as it buys and sells assets, and as it reinvests profits in its business. A company reports its assets on its balance sheet. You can calculate the change in a company’s assets between accounting periods. A greater amount of assets can help a company generate higher profit.
Find a company’s most recent balance sheet and its balance sheet from the previous accounting period in either its 10-Q quarterly reports or 10-K annual reports. You can obtain these reports from the investor relations section of its website or from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR online database.
Find the amount of the company’s total assets from its most recent balance sheet and the amount of its total assets from its previous period’s balance sheet. For example, assume a company had $100,000 in total assets in its previous period and $120,000 in its most recent period.
Subtract the amount of total assets in its previous period from the amount in its most recent period to calculate the dollar change in assets. A positive number means the company grew its assets, while a negative number means its assets decreased. In this example, subtract $100,000 from $120,000 to get $20,000. This means the company grew its assets by $20,000.
Divide the dollar change in assets by the amount of total assets in the previous period to calculate the percent change in assets. In this example, divide $20,000 by $100,000 to get 0.2, or 20 percent. This means the company increased its assets by 20 percent.
Tips
Track the change in a company’s assets over different accounting periods. A growing company should be increasing its assets over time.
References
Tips
- Track the change in a company's assets over different accounting periods. A growing company should be increasing its assets over time.