At your first meeting with alex, you ask to see his most recent financial statements so that you can get an overall assessment of the restaurant's financial health. alex looks at you blankly and says, "i'm a chef, not an accountant, and i don't know what financial statements you're talking about. can you explain to me? " what should your response be?

The two main financial statements are the income statement and the balance sheet.

In the income statement all the revenue and the expenses should be accounted for, resulting in net profits or net losses. The income statement shows how the restaurant has been performing over a given period (usually a year).

The balance sheet is like a photo of the restaurant itself at a specific point in time. The balance sheet shows what assets the restaurant has, how much money it owes and what percentage of the business really belongs to the owners.

The other two financial statements are the statement of owner's equity and the statement of cash flows, but they are more complicated to explain and not that basic for a small business.