Statement of Operations

It is used to assess the firm’s performance during a given period as it contains the entries related to revenues and expenses over the entire reporting time.

 Also called P&L (profit and loss) statement, or earnings or sometimes, income statement, it depicts the total revenue, operating expense, taxes, and profits.

The accountant gets all data before the final submission for the tax year and the management and shareholders use it to scrutinize the health of units. 
Some firms make use of a single-step financial statement and some make use of multi-step to analyze the operations and accounting trends.

The firms having different types of investment products and complex retailing that make use of multi-step where they select the report duration and prepare the document monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Publically traded firms are required by the law to prepare quarterly and annual statements where monthly preparation helps to track the direction profit or loss over time that is valuable information and can be applied to sketch out strategies related to new operations, hiring, or buying new equipment.

To calculate, you first need to record the duration (or the time period).

Then create a document header and add operating revenues. 

Then add operating expense, gross profits, operating and non –operating income to finally get the net income.

Accountant in a firm arrives at the number related to non-operating activities like financing and investing and some companies can have just one-time activity which can lead to changes in the value that appears completely different from the operating income.

To identify profit, companies generate the balance sheet that is like a snapshot and the statement of income, cash flow, and owner’s equity – show the full story.

The balance sheet tells about the assets and liabilities at the given moment or during the year-end and the income statement tries to find out the activities like what was coming in and what was going out and what was left at the end.  

The US Securities and Exchange Commission requires the publicly-owned firms to release the reports as open disclosure to the shareholders and investors, quarterly.

The reporting package may provide a look at the company’s overall proposition and its future possibilities. 

Any company needs to show the following in its statements –

Net income – It is the income generated through the sales and it can be divided into subsections to differentiate the type of income sources.

At each step of making a new entry, the deduction for certain costs or operating expenses is made to get the bottom line.  

At the top is the gross amount brought from sales where the expenses have not been deducted.

So the data is unrefined and from this value, the returns and allowances are deducted.

Itemize expense – The business needs to report expense- item wise and show the impact on the percentage of sales.

EBITDA - The firm needs to calculate the earnings before getting the tax depreciation, interest, amortization, or EBITDA.

The terms will show the difference between the sale and expense as earnings.

Account for interest – It depicts the debt and needs for interest payments as part of the statement.

Interest income refers to the interest-bearing account, money market funds, and other accounts and the interest expense is the rate the firm is paying on borrowed money.

Taxes –One has to mention the taxes – that are deducted from the earnings.

Depreciation – The total depreciation and amortization are calculated for the financial year/business year that is deducted from the revenues.

Depreciation takes into account the wear and tear of assets, tools, machinery, furniture, and the process of spreading the cost is used to get the impact. 

Earnings – In the end, one gets the profit records.