Absolute figures in the financial statements of a company are meaningless unless expressed in ............ to other figures.

Relation

Two individual items on the statements can be compared with one another and the relationship is expressed as a ratio. Ratios are computed for items on the same financial statement or on different statements. These ratios are compared with those of prior years and with those of other companies to make them more meaningful. A ratio is a simple mathematical expression. Ratio may be expressed by a number of ways. It is a number expressed in terms of another number. It i s a statistical yard stick that provides a measure of relationship between two figures.