The process of preparing a company's financial statements typically involves the following steps:

1. Record Financial Transactions: The first step in preparing financial statements is to accurately record all financial transactions that occurred during the accounting period. This involves documenting sales, purchases, income, and expenditures by using an accounting system.
2. Post Journal Entries: The financial transactions are then recorded in the general journal as debits and credits. Each entry should be timestamped and detail the accounts affected by the transaction.
3. Update the General Ledger: The journal entries are then posted to the general ledger, which organizes these transactions by account. The ledger shows the balance of each account, which can be a total debit, a total credit, or a zero balance.
4. Prepare a Trial Balance: The trial balance ensures that the sum of all debit entries equals the sum of all credit entries. If the trial balance is not balanced, it indicates that there are errors in the journal entries or ledger accounts that need to be corrected.
5. Make Adjusting Entries: At the end of the accounting period, adjusting entries are made to account for accrued income, accrued expenses, deferred income, and deferred expenses. These entries ensure that the revenue recognition and matching principles are followed.
6. Prepare an Adjusted Trial Balance: A new trial balance is prepared after the adjusting entries have been made. This serves to check the accuracy of the ledger accounts before the financial statements are prepared.
7. Prepare Financial Statements: Using the adjusted trial balance, the financial statements can now be prepared. The income statement is prepared first, followed by the statement of retained earnings, the balance sheet, and finally the cash flow statement.
8. Close Temporary Accounts: After the financial statements have been prepared and approved, the temporary (nominal) accounts — those used to collect information for the income statement and the statement of retained earnings — are closed to start the next accounting period.
9. Prepare a Post-Closing Trial Balance: The post-closing trial balance includes only the real (permanent) accounts that carry forward their balances into the next accounting period.

It's important to note that these steps are a general guideline. The exact process may vary depending on the company's size, structure, industry, or the specific accounting software used.