One may not become an accounts expert for investing in stocks. But it is a blunder to invest without atleast understanding few important terminologies.

The basic need for our alalysis of balance sheet is to determine the maintainability of profits by a company in long run. So all our scruitiny mainly depend on the growth figures.
For an example, if a company has earned a profit of say 20 million and out of this say 10 million has come from profits by selling a fixed asset. So we will be negating this 10 million for our purposes of calculating EPS and hence the PE Ratios because this income can not be repeated again in coming years.
Another important factor is to look at operating margins. A company should have a fair profit margin. This means a minor fluctuation in selling prices can not greatly effet the net profits.

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