Balance Sheet

A balance sheet lists the assets, liabilities and capital structure of a company as of a specific date, usually the last day of the financial period. Here, this date will be 31st March 2018. It helps understand what the company owns, what it owes and the amount of money invested by shareholders and debt holders.

Cash and Short-term Investments

Cash & short-term investments is the sum of cash available with the company and amount invested by the company in short-term investment options. Short-term investment options include investments made in liquid securities that usually have a maturity of less than 1 year and can be easily converted into cash. Excess cash amount, which is not required for daily business operations, is usually invested in liquid securities.  

In case of banks, the data item also includes cash that has been lent to other banks on a short-term basis.

Cash & short-term investments is on the assets side of the balance sheet in the current assets section.