A balance sheet presents the amounts of a company’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity as of an instant or moment in time within a day. Usually it is the instant as of the end of the day. In other words, you can have a balance sheet each day, but the balance sheet amounts represent the amount at the instant or moment after all of the transactions of the specified day have been recorded.
We avoid saying that the balance sheet is for the day, since the amounts are not for the 24-hour period. For example, the cash amount that is reported on the balance sheet is the cash as of the end of the day. For the day, the cash balance may have been $1000 at 8 a.m., $1200 at 9 a.m., $823 at 10 a.m., $3134 at 4 p.m., etc. Similarly, account balances such as accounts receivable and accounts payable are changing during the day.
If you do prepare a balance sheet as of the end of each day, you will need to make daily adjusting entries in order for the balance sheet to be meaningful. For example, each day more electricity is used and therefore each day there is an additional liability and an expense for electricity.
