Definition

Balance-sheet identity

The equation the balance sheet is built on: everything a company owns is funded by creditors or by owners, so total assets equal total liabilities plus stockholders' equity — by construction, in every filing. A statement where the identity fails to reconcile means a misread or a broken extraction, never a real company.

Formula

Assets = Liabilities + Stockholders' equity

Drivers — what actually moves it

Funding mix: the identity splits one asset base into its two funding sources — the split, not the total, is the analysis.
Reconciliation: Echelon's pipeline refuses any filing where the three filed totals fail to reconcile — the identity is a data-integrity gate.

Where to find it in the filing

Balance sheet (Consolidated Balance Sheets). 10-K Item 8 — total assets, total liabilities, and total stockholders' equity; the statement totals must balance.

XBRL concepts Echelon grounds to: Assets · Liabilities · StockholdersEquity

Prove it on a model

Three-statement linkage on AAPL’s filing“How do the three statements link together?”

Sector caveats — where this breaks

Some filers tag no separate Liabilities total; it is then derived as assets minus equity — a derivation the identity itself licenses.

Drill it in a live lesson Working capital Equity multiplier Retained earnings

Drill balance-sheet identity on another filer

Graded exercises that use this metric — each one against a different company's own filed figures.

Apple's balance sheet: the identity Airbnb's balance sheet: the identity Adobe's balance sheet: the identity Analog Devices' balance sheet: the identity AIG's balance sheet: the identity Allstate's balance sheet: the identity

Educational use only — not investment advice. Figures come from public SEC filings; Echelon teaches you to analyze data, it never recommends buying or selling any security.