What is balance sheet?
A snapshot of what the business owns and owes at one moment in time.
Where a P&L covers a period, a balance sheet is a single date: assets on one side, liabilities and equity on the other, and the two sides balance.
For a small business the useful reading is the shape of it. A lot of value sitting in unsold stock, or a lot owed to you and not yet collected, both show up here as strength on paper that you cannot spend.