If you can follow a recipe or apply for a loan, you can learn basic accounting. The basics aren’t difficult and
they aren’t rocket science. These notes will not train you to be an accountant, but it should give you the
confidence to be able to look at a set of financial statements and make sense of them.
Let’s begin by looking at what financial statements do.
“Show me the money!”
What financial statements do is to show you where an organisation’s money came from, where it went, and
where it is now. They provide information about an entity’s financial position, performance and cash flow to
external and internal parties, such as management and member states, in IFAD’s case.