The value of horizontal analysis enables analysts to assess the company’s past performance and current financial position or growth and project the useful insights gained into the future. However, when using the analysis technique, the comparison (current) period can be made to appear uncommonly bad or good. It depends on the choice of the base year and the chosen accounting periods on which the analysis starts. This means Mistborn Trading saw an increase of $20,000 in revenue in the current year as compared to the prior year, which was a 20% increase. The same dollar change and percentage change calculations would be used for the income statement line items as well as the balance sheet line items. The figure below shows the complete horizontal analysis of the income statement and balance sheet for Mistborn Trading.

How detailed your initial financial statements are depends largely on the accounting software application you’re using. If you’re using an entry-level application, it’s likely you’ll need to use spreadsheets in order to complete the horizontal analysis. An analysis based on this comparative statement can reveal likely growth in the company due to increasing fixed assets and reserves and surplus.

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The first step to performing horizontal analysis is to calculate the net difference — in dollar terms ($) — between the comparable periods. It is important for every company to grow their business over time in order to create shareholder value. Thus, horizontal analysis helps to understand how successfully this has been achieved considering a period of time.

This is because vertical analysis expresses each line in the financial statements as a percentage of a base value, like sales. Using this example, vertical analysis takes the income statement and expresses every line item as a percentage of sales, whereas horizontal analysis is concerned with the percentage change in total sales over a period. The key difference between horizontal and vertical analysis depends on the way financial information in statements are extracted for decision making. Horizontal analysis compares financial information over time by adopting a line by line method.

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It is used to see if any numbers are unusually high or low in comparison to the information for bracketing periods, which may then trigger a detailed investigation of the reasons for the difference. John Freedman's articles specialize in management and financial responsibility. He is a certified public accountant, graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in business administration and has been writing since 1998.

• Finally, because horizontal analysis relies on the financial statements it is subject to the nuances of accounting policies that might not paint an accurate picture of the business’s actual performance over time.
• Horizontal analysis can also be used to compare growth rates and profitability over a specific period across firms in the same industry.
• As a financial statement, balance sheet is concerned with summarizing assert owned by the firm and sources of borrowing and owned funds in acquiring these assets.
• The significant increase in cash is due to the collection of account receivable, issue of common stock, sale of goods and fixed assets.

A common-size income statement allows you to compare your company’s income statement to another company’s or to the industry average. On the other hand, comparability constraint dictates that a company’s financial statements and other documentation be such that they can be evaluated against other similar companies within the same industry. Horizontal analysis is used to improve What is the difference between vertical analysis and horizontal analysis? and enhance these constraints during financial reporting. If a company's net sales were $1,000,000 they will be presented as 100% ($1,000,000 divided by $1,000,000). If the cost of goods sold amount is $780,000 it will be presented as 78% ($780,000 divided by sales of $1,000,000). If interest expense is $50,000 it will be presented as 5% ($50,000 divided by $1,000,000).

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Calculate the percentage of each item as a percentage of sales or total assets but dividing the amount of the selected item with sales/total assets and multiplying it by 100. Providing students with an overview of financial statements using the Dupont analysis approach. As a financial statement, balance sheet is concerned with summarizing assert owned by the firm and sources of borrowing and owned funds in acquiring these assets. Figure (3) shows a hypothetical balance sheet of Annapurna Textile Inc. as on June 2018. We’ll start by inputting our historical income statement and balance sheet into an Excel spreadsheet. Horizontal analysis, or “time series analysis”, is oriented around identifying trends and patterns in the revenue growth profile, profit margins, and/or cyclicality (or seasonality) over a predetermined period.

Horizontal, or trend, analysis is used to spot and evaluate trends over a specific period of time. In an absolute analysis, financial data in the form of absolute values are compared year on year. Finance professionals conduct horizontal analysis within a company or business to help evaluate the trend of an item over the past many consecutive years. The vertical analysis considers each amount on the financial statement listed as a percentage of another amount.

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On the other hand, reduced investments and bank balance may indicate a deterioration in the cash flow/liquidity position. Since horizontal analysis is expressed in percentage change over time, it is often confused with vertical analysis. The two are entirely different with the primary difference between them being that horizontal examines the relationship between numbers across various periods and vertical analysis is only concerned with a single period. For example, let us assume that we are interested in comparing gross sales of a business quarter-over-quarter for the last year. Using the financial statements, we could take the gross sales from the first quarter as our beginning period’s value. The horizontal or “trend analysis” considers all the amounts in financial statements over many years.

As with the horizontal analysis, you need to use more years for any meaningful trend analysis. This figure compares the difference in accounts from 2014 to 2015, showing each account as a percentage of sales for each year listed. With vertical analysis, one can see the relative proportions of account balance. This simplifies the process of comparing the financial statement of the company against another or to even do it across the industry. This analysis also gives a better picture of the performance metrics of the company and if it’s improving or on a decline. That is done by looking at the annual or quarterly figures of the company and comparing it over a number of years.