4.6. Closing Comments

The income statement occupies center stage; the bright spotlight is on this financial statement because it reports profit or loss for the period. But remember that a business reports three primary financial statements — the other two being the balance sheet and the statement of cash flows, which I discuss in the next two chapters. The three statements are like a three-ring circus. The income statement may draw the most attention, but you have to watch what's going on in all three places. As important as profit is to the financial success of a business, the income statement is not an island unto itself.

Also, keep in mind that financial statements are supplemented with footnotes and contain other commentary from the business's executives. If the financial statements have been audited, the CPA firm includes a short report stating whether the financial statements have been prepared in conformity with GAAP. Chapter 15 explains audits and the auditor's report.

I don't like closing this chapter on a sour note, but I must point out that an income statement you read and rely on — as a business manager, investor, or lender — may not be true and accurate. In most cases (I'll even say in the large majority of cases), businesses prepare their financial statements in good faith, and their profit accounting is honest. They may bend the rules a little, but basically their accounting methods are within the boundaries of GAAP even though the business puts a favorable spin on its profit number.

But some businesses resort to accounting fraud and deliberately distort their profit numbers. In this case, an income statement reports false and misleading sales revenue and/or expenses in order to make the bottom-line profit appear to be better than the facts would support. If the fraud is discovered at a later time, the business puts out revised financial statements. Basically, the business in this situation rewrites its profit history. I wish I could say that this doesn't happen very often, but the number of high-profile accounting fraud cases in recent years has been truly alarming. The CPA auditors of these companies did not catch the accounting fraud, even though this is one purpose of an audit. Investors who relied on the fraudulent income statements ended up suffering large losses.

Anytime I read a financial report, I keep in mind the risk that the financial statements may be "stage managed" to some extent — to make year-to-year reported profit look a little smoother and less erratic, and to make the financial condition of the business appear a little better. Regretfully, financial statements don't always tell it as it is. Rather, the chief executive and chief accountant of the business fiddle with the financial statements to some extent. I say much more about this tweaking of a business's financial statements in later chapters.