What happened to assets, earnings, dividends, and cash flows during the financial year? Accounting practice in the United States follows the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) developed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which is a nongovernmental, professional standards body that monitors accounting practices and evaluates controversial issues. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fequires all publicly traded companios to poriodically report their financial information. A publicly held corporation must publish an annual report that contains the balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, statement of stockhoiders' equity, and other financial information for analysis. each descriptien. Accountants focus on creating financial statements, whereas finance professionale mostiy use these statembnts to evaluate a firm and answer questions about its performance. Inclicate which financial statement would be the most heipful in answering the questions in the foliowing table: If compensation for seniar manegernent is besed on sharf-term performance of the firm, in the short run the firm is likely to: understake its earning?: tovertere ite enminge