The balance sheet is a summary of an organization's assets, liabilities and shareholder's equity at a point in time. This also can be called a statement of financial position because it outlines the organizations capital (assets), debts (liabilities) and the investor's contributions (shareholder's equity). Each of these can have several accounts within each segment. Assets can be considered as cash, accounts receivable, merchandise inventory and property while liabilities can be accounts payable, short-term debt and long-term debt. The balance sheet is base on a fundamental equation, which is expressed as: Total Assets = Total Liabilities + Owners' Equity This equation shows that the assets must equal the liabilities plus the owners' equity of the company. The balance sheet provides a column for assets and a column for liabilities and owners' equity. The first item under the assets column of the balance sheet is current assets. Current assets are considered ...