What you will learn to do: Illustrate proper reporting of long-term liabilities

You may have noticed that, much like with assets, certain categories can include both non-current and current liabilities. In the assets section of the balance sheet, we saw that some investments could be current and some non-current. In the liabilities section, we see that long-term debt includes a current portion, and you can see that below on the liabilities section of the balance sheet for Ford Motor Company for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019.

Notice, too, Ford presents their comparative report with the current year in the rightmost column, unlike many of the other companies we’ve observed so far, that show the most current year in the leftmost column. GAAP doesn’t go into that much detail in prescribing the presentation, but most companies show newest to oldest from left to right.

See the balance sheet long description here.

Also, notice that Ford makes reference to the footnotes for each line item of both current and non-current liabilities, and in this section, you’ll be studying both the presentation of long-term debt and other liabilities and the disclosures that go with them.