The Income Statement
Businesses and other organizations periodically produce financial statements, i.e. formal structures for conveying financial information to decision makers. Smaller organizations distribute such statements each year frequently as part of an annual report prepared by management.
The main contents of an income statement are rather straightforward: a listing of all revenues earned and expenses incurred by the reporting organization during the period specified.
Revenue figures disclose increases in net assets (assets minus liabilities) that were created by the sale of goods or services. For IBM for example, revenues are derived from the sale and servicing of computers (a total of $99.9 billion in 2010), while for Papa John's International, the reported revenue figure for 2010 (a bit over $1.1 billion) measures the increase in net assets created by the sale of pizzas and related items.
Conversely, expenses are decreases in net assets incurred by a reporting organization in hopes of generating revenues. For example, salaries paid to sales people for the work they have done constitute an expense. The cost of facilities that have been rented is also an expense as is money paid for utilities such as electricity, heat, and water.
For example, IBM reported selling, general, and administrative expenses during 2010 of $21.8 billion. That was just one category of expenses disclosed within the company's income statement for this period. During the same year, Papa John's reported salaries and benefits as an expense for its domestic company-owned restaurants of $137.8 million. Financial accounting focuses on providing useful information about an organization, and both of these figures will help decision makers begin to glimpse a portrait of the underlying business.
An income statement also reports gains and losses for the same period of time. A gain is an increase in the net assets of an organization created by an occurrence that is outside its primary or central operations. A loss is a decrease in net assets from a similar type of incidental event. As an example, when Apple sells or repairs a computer, it reports revenue because that is the sale of a good or service provided by this company. However, if Apple disposes of a piece of land adjacent to a warehouse, a gain is reported (if sold above cost) or a loss (if sold below cost). Selling computers falls within Apple's primary operations whereas selling land does not.
The important thing to remember about an income statement is that it represents a period of time. This contrasts with the balance sheet, which represents a single moment in time.
In every section of this chapter, a partial or full Income Statement from a real company is provided. Revenues, cost of goods sold (COGS), general and administrative expenses (G&A) and net income, all of which will be covered in the following sections, will all be shown on the income statements provided.