A balance sheet is a financial "snapshot" of your business at a given date in time. It includes your assets and liabilities and tells you your business's net worth.

You've probably seen a formal balance sheet for other businesses, or have paid an accountant to do one for yours. If you would like to try preparing a balance sheet for your business, you can use the Balance Sheet Template as a starting point. Just plug in your account balances and the spreadsheet will automatically compute all the subtotals and totals and tell you if your balance sheet doesn't balance.

Although the template is an example of a balance sheet for a sole proprietorship, you can quickly modify it for a corporation or partnership. You can add or delete account titles, revise the format, or otherwise modify it to suit your needs.

The file contains a Microsoft Excel (version 4.0 and above) spreadsheet template.