Remembering what to disclose on an income statement presentation, especially for a public company, could be daunting to even a highly-skilled accountant. This post aims to provide a handy set of pointers that may act as reminder for accountants who have difficulty to remember all items required to be presented.

Those items presented on the income statement are being there for good reasons; provides stakeholders (investors, creditors, and others) with clear yet complete information, about company’s performance for a certain period (Jan 1 to Dec 31).

Although information in the income statement comes from data about past performance, investors, creditors, and others use that information to predict company’s future performance. They want to know company’s net income and its components, which are provided in the income statement, and how its likelihood will be happened in the future period through analyses. Income statement provides information about a period of time. It reflects information about the transactions and other events occurring within the period. Companies are continually creating and selling goods and services, and at any single point in time some of those processes will be incomplete. Thus, however, measurement of net income for a period involves estimates.