Balance Sheet Reporting Practices by Listed Companies of Bangladesh

This paper tries to find out balance sheet reporting practices by the listed companies in Bangladesh. Among the non-financial companies, the most widely used balance sheet style follows the equation as [NCA (CA - CL) = E NCL], (83 companies, 34%); followed by the style with equation [E NCL = NCA (CA - CL)], (45 companies, 19%). Variation in balance sheet reporting is none in financial sectors like banking, and insurance due to regulation. The variation is evident in non-financial sectors as very high, even within the sector. Variation in use of balance sheet style is very high in sectors like engineering, food and allied, and pharmaceutical. Both engineering and pharmaceutical companies follow seven different types of balance sheet styles; the figure is six for food and allied sector. Most of the listed companies of Bangladesh present their balance sheet in English language (226 companies, 93%). 31st December is the most widely used balance sheet reporting date (127 companies, 52%) followed by 30th June (97 companies, 40%). Most of the companies use report format (203 companies, 84%). In the balance sheet assets are arranged as fixed assets first with least liquid first and more liquid last, then current assets second with less liquid first and most liquid last.