Bob Lawson is the president of his company; his CFO is Mark Ziegler. Like many entrepreneurs, Bob is more concerned about the big picture and leaves the day-to-day accounting details up to Mark. Bob reviews the financial statements regularly; however, Mark would like to help him understand how to make better use of the company's financial statements to gauge the changes in his business and plan for the future. Even though Mark generates all statements in terms of dollars and percents (common-size statements), Bob ignores the common-size statements

What is your question? You need comparative and common-size financial statements for a trend analysis. You need to know how your company is doing over a period and how you are doing during the same time as previous years, as well as how you are doing against your competitors or the industry average. Are you doing better or worse this period versus previous years.