First, we can see that the Vertical Analysis‘s marketing expenses increased not just in dollar terms, but also as a percentage of sales. This implies that the new money invested in marketing was not as effective in driving sales growth as in prior years. The following example shows ABC Company’s income statement over a three-year period. Amortization ExpenseAmortization of Intangible Assets refers to the method by which the cost of the company’s various intangible assets is expensed over a specific time period. Let’s see some examples of vertical analysis of an income statement to understand it better. Let us see the example of vertical analysis of Colgate’s Income Statement.

• Starting from the revenue line item, each line item on the income statement – if deemed appropriate – is divided by revenue .
• If multiple periods are not used, it can be difficult to identify a trend.
• The income statement also uses this presentation with revenue entries referencing total revenues and expense entries referencing total expenses.
• In this example of vertical analysis, you can see that you only need to use balance sheet items from a single accounting period.
• The percentage of each component illustrates how it relates to the overall.

Tammy teaches business courses at the post-secondary and secondary level and has a master’s of business administration in finance. For this example, the analysis will be carried out on the data reported for 2021. However, you can do this quickly for multiple years, particularly if you use a balance sheet template. Tools like Google Sheets or Excel allow you to automate calculations, so you can focus on analysis.

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Hence, it may not be easy to make any decision based on such analysis and looking at the change in the percentage of various income statement components. Standard Financial RatioFinancial ratios are indications of a company’s financial performance.

Vertical analysis is used in order to gain a picture of whether performance metrics are improving or deteriorating. Regardless of the budgeting approach your organization adopts, it requires big data to ensure accuracy, timely execution, and of course, monitoring.

Vertical vs. Horizontal Analysis

This makes it easier to spot trends in financial performance between periods or between companies. If a company’s inventory is $100,000 and its total assets are $400,000 the inventory will be expressed as 25% ($100,000 divided by $400,000). If cash is $8,000 then it will be presented as 2%($8,000 divided by $400,000). If the accounts payable are $88,000 they will be restated as 22% ($88,000 divided by $400,000).

If owner’s https://www.bookstime.com/ is $240,000 it will be shown as 60% ($240,000 divided by $400,000). The vertical analysis of the balance sheet will result in a common-size balance sheet. The percentages on a common-size balance sheet allow you to compare a small company’s balance sheets to that of a very large company’s balance sheet. A common-size balance sheet can also be compared to the average percentages for the industry. Horizontal analysis looks at trends over time on various financial statement line items. For example, a business may compare sales from their current year to sales from the prior year. The trending of items on these financial statements can give a business valuable information on overall performance and specific areas for improvement.