
The selling and marketing expenses increased by 7.4% from Rs 43,438 million in 2023 to Rs 46,648 million in 2024. The general and administrative expenses also grew by 2.1% from Rs 39,426 million to Rs horizontal analysis formula 40,250 million. The profit before tax marginally declined by 0.3% from Rs 98,438 million in 2023 to Rs 98,147 million in 2024.
General Management Programs

To get a more valid analysis, however, at least three financial statements are used. The more statements available and used for analysis, the greater the results obtained. It establishes a baseline number such as “total sales” or “total assets.” Then, it considers other figures as a percentage of the base. It helps with step-by-step methods, especially when preparing for your exams or if you want to be an accountant.
Time Value of Money
For example, if that Company XYZ’s net income was $10 million and retained earnings were $50 million at the start of its existence, as depicted by example. If you are a finance professional or you want to step into the field of finance then becoming a financial analyst is a great career option. There are multiple financial analyst courses that you can take to improve your skill set. The Postgraduate Financial Analysis Program by Imarticus is an insightful course that will help you leverage your abilities in the field of finance. The current year, that is the question of the same company has reported net revenue of $20 million and retained income of $52 million. As a consequence, the net increase has been $10 million, and the earnings retained for that particular particular year is $2 million.
Stock data directly on your spreadsheets
Horizontal analysis really is quite simple, and it can be conducted using any metric within your company. Get practical, strategic finance insights from those who’ve been there—straight to your inbox. Horizontal analysis can be performed annually or over any other relevant period, depending on the specific requirements and objectives of the analysis. To further understand the application, let’s consider another example involving net income over three years.
Best Practices and Common Pitfalls

By handling the operational complexity of financial management, Aspire frees you to focus on what the numbers mean rather than whether they’re accurate. In practice, the value of vertical and horizontal analysis lies not just in identifying problems income statement early but in helping teams stay aligned, confident, and focused on solutions. Vertical analysis is even more straightforward than horizontal analysis, but the insights can be equally powerful.

- Horizontal analysis is one of the most fundamental analyses of historical financial information that you can perform.
- Using the formula described above, calculate the horizontal analysis formula for each item you selected.
- Horizontal analysis is a financial analysis technique used to assess changes in a company’s financial statements over multiple periods, typically comparing current and past years.
- The balance sheet is a representation of a company’s financial status at a specific moment in time, including equity, liabilities, and assets.
- Conversely, a surge in administrative expenses without a corresponding increase in output signals potential inefficiencies.
- Vertical analysis expresses each line item on a financial statement as a percentage of a base amount; revenue for income statements, total assets for balance sheets.
In horizontal analysis, the changes in specific financial statement values are expressed as a percentage and in U.S. dollars. To calculate the percentage change, first select the base year and comparison year. Subsequently, calculate the dollar change by subtracting the value in the base year from that in the comparison year and divide by the base year.
- A CEO walks into the boardroom with a single quarter’s financial statements and P&L and declares victory because revenue hit an all-time high.
- Hence, it is important for individuals wanting to build a career in finance to know that in such scenarios, leaving a footnote about the financial statement and its consistency is one of the best practices.
- A slowing revenue growth rate may indicate market saturation, increased competition, or internal inefficiencies.
- The priority here should be to identify the company’s areas of strengths and weaknesses to create an actionable plan to drive value creation and implement operating improvements.
- As you can see, horizontal analysis is a versatile tool with diverse applications across finance, investment, risk assessment, internal performance evaluation, and regulatory compliance.
- It’s one thing to grow revenue 10% in a booming market; it’s entirely different to achieve that same growth in a declining industry.
- For example, a business may want to know how much inventory contributes to total assets.

It doesn’t account for external factors or industry https://cbdnew.meetlab.hu/amortization-vs-depreciation-what-are-the-2/ changes that may impact financial results. Also, horizontal analysis alone may not provide a comprehensive understanding of a company’s financial health and requires additional analysis and context. Through horizontal analysis of financial statements, you would be able to see two actual data for consecutive years and would be able to compare every item. And based on that, you can forecast the future and understand the trend. If a decrease in sales volume is attributed to increased competition, the company may need to re-evaluate its marketing strategy or product offerings.

