There are three financial statements that are commonly used to understand a company' s economic performance: the balance sheet, the income statement and the cash flow statement. Each statement is prepared regularly so that users inside and outside of the organization can make decisions about the health of the company. For example, management is interested in the quality of an organization's financial statements. They act as an historical record of its ability to put the organization's resources to profitable use. Capital providers are also interested in an organization's financial statements. In this case, financial statements offer insight into the quality of their investment. To help ensure that an organization's financial statements offer a fair assessment of its economic performance, statements are prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. By requiring organizations to follow GAAP, capital providers are reasonably assured that the financial statements are free of significant errors, otherwise known as material misrepresentations.