How to prepare an income statement

In an accounting system, the best tool to take information from would be the "adjusted trial balance". This is the most updated trial balance (i.e. prepared after considering any adjustments to the accounts). In any case, any report that shows a complete listing of company accounts can be used.

Let's take the adjusted trial balance of Gray Electronic Repair Services.

Step 2: Start with the heading

The heading of a financial statement is often made up of three lines. The first line contains the name of the company (Gray Electronic Repair Services). The second line shows the title of the report (Income Statement). And the third line indicates the period reported.

For income statements, we use For the Year Ended. , For the Quarter Ended. , For the Month Ended. , etc., depending on the period covered in the report. Nonetheless, some annual income statements just omit the "For the Year Ended" phrase.

Step 3: Report all revenue accounts

From the trial balance, we will look for and report all income or revenue accounts. You will need to be familiar with different income accounts such as Service Revenue, Sales, Professional Fees, Interest Income, etc. If you need a review on that topic, you may visit this lesson: Elements of Accounting.

In the adjusted trial balance above, there is only one revenue account - Service Revenue.

Note: If there are multiple revenue accounts, you need to list them down and take the sum total of all revenues.

Step 4: Report all expense accounts

From the adjusted trial balance again, we will take all expenses and include them in the report. Once they are all listed, we will get the sum of all the expenses.

It is a good practice to list the expenses from highest to lowest whenever possible. This allows better analysis of company expenses.

Drawing a horizontal line means that a mathematical operation has been performed. The line below 370 means that we took the sum of all expenses which amounts to 8,790. The total amount of expenses is aligned with the total amount of revenues.

Step 5: Compute for the net income

Net income is equal to total revenues minus total expenses.

Again, we drew a single line under 8,790 to indicate that a mathematical operation was made. Two horizontal lines are drawn under the final amount (1,060 net income). This is known as "double-rule" and is similar to enclosing the final answers in a box or circle in a math test.

So there you go. The preparation is somewhat easy – you just need to be familiar with the different revenue and expense accounts.

Some Important Notes

This is a simplified illustration of preparing an income statement. Income tax expense was not considered in the above example. The treatment of income taxes depends upon the applicable laws of the state or country. Nonetheless, if the company is subject to income tax, the income tax expense should be deducted to get the net income. Since income tax expense is based on income, we need to get the income before tax first.

Total Revenues - Total Operating Expenses = Income Before Tax
Income Before Tax - Income Tax Expense = Net Income

Also, the income statements of a merchandising or a manufacturing business will look a little different from the above example. Typically, gross profit is computed before deducting the operating expenses. Gross profit is equal to sales minus cost of sales.

This lesson presented how an income statement is prepared. An income statement shows information about a company's profitability by summarizing its total revenues and total expenses, and calculating the resulting net income.