What is an Income Statement?

Meaning of Income Statement

The income statement is a company’s one of the most important financial statement that indicates profit and loss for an accounting year. This profit or loss is evaluated by adding all revenues and then subtracting the expenses from operating and non-operating activities.

Corporate finance and accounting use the income statement as one of the significant financial statements. This income statement includes gross profit, revenue, costs, taxes paid, net profit, selling and administrative expenses, other expenses, and income, etc.

This income statement is used as a great base to start a financial report because most of the information is available in this statement.

Components of an Income Statement

Most of the companies have similar components; however, due to the company’s expense, income and operation type of operations, there are few variations.

The most basic income statement components are:

• Revenue/Sales – At the top of the statement, every firm’s sales and service revenue are shown.
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) – It is a line-item that sums up the direct costs related to goods sold to make revenue. If the company is a service business, COGS is also known as the cost of sales.
• Gross Profit – It is determined by subtracting the cost of goods sold from sales revenue.
• Marketing, Promotion, and Advertising Expenses – Most organizations have expenses associated with selling products and services. Marketing, promotion, and advertising are often classified in the same cost.
• Depreciation & Amortization Expense – These are non-cash charges. A few examples are depreciation charged on plant, property, and equipment (PP&E).
• Interest – It is divided into interest income and interest expense line in the income statement.

Also Check: Types of Financial Statements

Income Statement Format

Income Statement Formula

Income Statement Example

Here is an income statement from Amit’s adjusted trial balance for the year-end December 2015.

This concludes the article on the topic of Income Statement, which is an important topic for Commerce students. For more such interesting articles, stay tuned to BYJU’S.