Even with good performance and consistently meeting weaning goals producers can end up in financial trouble. Either costs are too high or income too low, but either way performance measurements are not always accurate at determining the success of a producer. Financial statements allow the current and past status to be evaluated, provide objective targets, and allow for future planning. Ways to track financial performance include charts of accounts, balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements. Analysis of finances can be done through ratios in five areas: profitability, turnover, financial leverage, liquidity, and market value. Return of Equity (ROE), or the Dupont system, is often used because it addresses invested capital. Return on Assets (ROA) can intuitively be used when making management decisions, as it includes throughput and profit margin, and it contributes to total ROE. Optimum performance involves balancing high productivity and low costs, this is particularly hard to determine when prices are volatile and benchmarking difficult. Partial budgets are useful for making smaller, short-term decisions. Sensitivity analysis is useful to see how robust the budget is when one variable, like a price, is changed. Financial records can be powerful tools for analyzing performance, and with production records can give a good overview of the status of the facility.