Financial Statement Presentation

  • Reporting current liabilities on the financial statements

 

As you can see from The Home Depot, Inc. partial balance sheet, current liabilities are presented in some detail. Income taxes payable are presented as a separate line item even though the amount is much smaller than the others, rather than being included in “Other accrued expenses” because it is of interest to investors.

THE HOME DEPOT INC.
CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEET
in millions, except per share data February 2, 2020 February 3, 2019
Subcategory, Current liabilities:
     Short term debt $     974 $     1,339
     Accounts payable 7,787 7,755
     Accured salaries and related expenses 1,494 1,506
     Sales taxes payable 605 656
     Deferred revenue 2,116 1,782
     Income taxes payable 55 11
     Current installments of long-term debt 1,839 1,056
     Current operating lease liabilities 828
     Other accrued expenses 2,677 2,611
       Total current liabilities Single line
18,375
Single line
16,716
Single line Single line

 

On this balance sheet, short term debt is listed before accounts payable which indicates it may be rolled over even more rapidly than the regular trade payables, which are probably 30-day due dates. More information on that line item is available in Note 4 of the financials, along with information on the current portion of long-term debt and leases.

Look up any publicly traded company’s financial statements, and you’ll see on the balance sheet, current liabilities are reported separately from long-term liabilities. We will be covering long-term liabilities in detail in another module.