Study Notes
Balance Sheet - Introduction
- Level:
- GCSE, AS, A-Level
- Board:
- AQA, Edexcel, OCR, IB
Last updated 22 Mar 2021
The balance sheet provides a summary of the assets and liabilities of a business. It is a snapshot of those assets at a particular moment in time.
![](https://tutor2u-net.imgix.net/subjects/business/diagrams/balance-sheet-snapshot-overview.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=80&w=800)
The balance sheet always balances because of the use of "double-entry" bookkeeping to record business transactions.
Every transaction in a business always has two equal effects on the assets and liabilities of a business. Some examples are shown below.
![](https://tutor2u-net.imgix.net/subjects/business/diagrams/balance-sheet-why-it-balances.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=80&w=800)
![](https://tutor2u-net.imgix.net/subjects/business/diagrams/balance-sheet-double-entry-examples.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=clip&q=80&w=800)
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