Imagine you’re helping a friend analyze their financial situation to figure out if they're being smart with their money.

What are some questions you’d ask them? 🤔

Maybe you’d ask: how much money do they make? How much do they spend?

How much stuff, like cars, houses or stocks they own? And how much do they owe other people?

It turns out when you're looking at a company's financial situation, you’d basically ask the same questions, and accounting is what provides you the answers 😅

Accounting is the systematic process of recording, summarizing, and reporting the financial transactions of a company or individual 📊

Now imagine instead of helping your friend, you’re helping Nike out, and doing their accounting.

You’d probably want to record how many shoes they sell, how much it costs them to produce and sell the shoes, how many shoes and factories they own, and how much they owe their partners 👟

Knowing a company's financial history helps you understand how well a company manages its money, and can ultimately help you make better investment decisions. 💡

Luckily, companies release financial statements as part of their earnings report each quarter, and we’ll show you exactly what to look at in these statements to become a better investor.