A financial statement within a set of the key financial statements that an entity has to prepare, publish and make available to the users. These statements constitute those statements that are always required to be presented under normal reporting conditions.

The primary financial statements are the statement of financial position (balance sheet), statement of profit or loss (the statement of income) and other comprehensive income, the statement of changes in equity and the statement of cash flows. The statement of cash flows is a presentation statement and does not cause any circular reference issues (i.e., does not affect double-entry tie-up).

As a rule-of-thumb, a particular statement might be considered “primary” or merely “necessary” to understanding an entity and its operations largely depending on the nature of that entity. For instance, the statement of cash flows may not be a primary financial statement for a financial entity (e.g., a bank).

Primary financial statements constitute a part of the complete set of financial statements for an entity.