This figure represents the profit earned from the core business activities, excluding operating expenses. In general, a multiple-step income statement provides a more comprehensive view of a company’s financial performance (as opposed to a single-step income statement). A multi-step income statement includes subtotals for gross profit, operating expenses, and non-operating expenses.

Overcoming these challenges is crucial as the accurate preparation of the income statement significantly impacts the financial reporting, influencing the decisions made by the stakeholders and potential investors. The advantages of a multi-step income statement over a single-step version are evident in its ability to present a more comprehensive overview of a company’s financial performance. It enables users to identify the specific areas contributing to the profit or loss, thus facilitating a more informed analysis.

  • In a multi step income statement,  business activities are separated into operating activities and non-operating activities.
  • When calculating gross profit, no other expenditures are included apart from the cash inflow from the sale of goods and cash outflow from the purchase of goods.
  • Given the gross profit of Apple for each period, the next step is to subtract operating expenses to determine the company’s operating profit in each fiscal year.

Operating Head – Gross Profit

In the revenue section, you should be able to view the company’s sales and net sales. My Accounting Course  is a world-class educational resource developed by experts to simplify accounting, finance, & investment analysis topics, so students and professionals can learn and propel their careers. Increase your desired income on your desired schedule by using Taxfyle’s platform to pick up tax filing, consultation, and bookkeeping jobs.

  • In a multiple-step income statement, the other incomes are recorded in the non-operating section.
  • A single-step income statement offers a simplified snapshot of a company’s revenue and expenses.
  • Other income and expenses like interest, lawsuit settlements, extraordinary items, and gains or losses from investments are also listed in this section.
  • It lists items in different categories to make it convenient for users of the income statement to better understand the core operations of the business.

Operating revenues:

This section helps measure the health of business and the profitability of core business activities. The multi-step income statement categorizes operating and non-operating incomes and expenses. The users will know the profit earned from the primary activities of buying and selling goods and how it differs from the non-operating activities. Gross profit, a fundamental component of the multi-step income statement, is calculated by subtracting the cost of goods sold from the total revenue.

Many private companies elect to follow GAAP, even though they aren’t legally obligated to do so. GAAP gives companies the option of issuing either single-step or multiple-step income statements depending on how they’re structured. Like COGS, operating expenses are an integral part of the core operating activities of a company.

Gross profit is used by creditors to show the company’s ability to meet arising debt obligations and to pay back outstanding credit. The importance of using a multi-step income statement lies in its ability to depict a company’s financial state. It enables a more accurate assessment of business operations and facilitates better decision-making by providing a detailed breakdown of various income and expense components. Include any non-operating income (e.g., multiple step income statement interest income, gains from investments) and expenses (e.g., interest expenses, losses from investments) separately in the income statement. This detailed approach helps users understand where a company’s profits are coming from and how different types of activities impact the overall financial performance.

How to Read and Understand Financial Statements: A Guide to What They Are and How to Manage Them

As you can see there is a heavy focus on financial modeling, finance, Excel, business valuation, budgeting/forecasting, PowerPoint presentations, accounting and business strategy. This template also lets the users know the current gross profit which is one of the most important pieces of information to know for their decision making. Non-operating expenses are the expenses that are non-related to the entity’s daily operation. For example, interest expenses and other expenses that spend by the entity like selling of fixed assets. Other items that normally include the other income include the income that the entity generates from sales of fixed assets or other one-off income-generating activities. A multiple-step income statement is also the template approved to be used by IFRS.

It assists investors and managers in making better decisions on where to invest, how to finance it, and how to efficiently operate the business. These models are also used to estimate the valuation of a business and to compare it to others in the same industry. For instance, if your business is charged with 10% of tax expense from a total of $60,000 of net income, thus, your business will have to bear $6,000 of tax expense. Moving forward, you should be able to compute the company’s Net Income before tax by adding the sum of operating income with non-operating income.

The income statement doesn’t show Gross profit, separate and calculate Total Operating expenses, or calculate Total Operating income. An example of a single step income statement is Dana Incorporated’s Consolidated Statement of Operations for the calendar years ended December 31, 2021, 2020, and 2019. It’s available as a 10-K company filing in the SEC’s EDGAR database dated February 23, 2022. The Board of Directors will receive a financial statement package, including the (multi-step) income statement, that includes analysis and interpretations of trends by the financial analyst team and the company’s CFO.

Starting off, the gross profit is equal to the revenue generated by a company in a pre-defined period minus its cost of goods sold (COGS), which are the direct costs incurred as part of its core business operations. Both selling and administrative expenses are added together for computing total operating expenses. And the Company’s Operating income is calculated by deducting these total operating expenses from the gross profit in the first section. Multi-step income statement format is any day better than a single-step statement as it provides proper detailing.

Operating Head – Selling and Admin Expenses

The calculation steps are clarified via the ‘+’ and ‘−’ symbols on the left of various income and expense items. Preparing a multi-step income statement is a more complex process than creating a single-step report. Here are the steps you need to follow to create a multiple-step income statement for your business. In short, the introduction of stakeholders for the first time is typically the catalyst for private companies to transition from the single-step to multiple-step income statement. Contrary to operating costs, non-operating costs are not part of the core, recurring operating activities of a company. A Multi-Step Income Statement is a statement that differentiates among the incomes, expenditures, profits, and losses into two important sub-categories that are known as operating items and non-operating items.

On the other hand, a multi-step income statement follows a three-step process to calculate the net income, and it segregates operating incomes and expenses from the non-operating incomes. It separates revenues and expenses from activities that are directly related to the business operations from activities that are not directly tied to the operations. As can be seen in the example above, the single step income statement shows that the business is making a net income of 25,000 and all looks well. Basically the bulk of the net income is actually coming from other income of 24,000 with may not be sustainable.

What Are Operating Costs?

A multiple-step income statement presents two important subtotals before arriving at a company’s net income. For a company that sells goods (merchandise, products) the first subtotal is the amount of gross profit. It’s important to note that the accuracy and adequacy of the multi-step income statement directly influence the understanding of a company’s financial performance. A meticulously prepared statement provides stakeholders with a detailed breakdown of the company’s financial activities and aids in assessing its operational efficiency and profitability. Many companies use the multi step income statement as one of their key financial reports.

Single-step income statements are easier to prepare and require fewer calculations. While they are less comprehensive than multi-step income statements, in some cases they can provide all the details you’ll need to assess the financial health of a business. All publicly traded companies in the U.S. must adhere to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which are accounting standards issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).