Income statement
Financial Accounting glossary · The Accounting Cycle & Financial Statements
Definition
Financial statement presenting revenues, expenses, gains, and losses for a period; also called the statement of operations.
Income statement in plain English
The income statement is the scoreboard for a period of time (a quarter or a year) that answers 'did we make or lose money?' It lists the money that came in — revenues from sales, plus one-off gains — and subtracts the money that went out — expenses like wages and rent, plus one-off losses — and the leftover at the bottom is your profit (or loss). Think of it like tallying up a lemonade stand's whole summer: total sales minus everything you spent equals what you actually earned. It's sometimes called the 'statement of operations,' but it's the same report.
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