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The Single-Step Income Statement
There are several formats in which you can construct an income statement. The simplest format is the single-step income statement, where you present a single subtotal for all revenue line items, and a single subtotal for all expense line items, with a net gain or loss appearing at the bottom of the report. Here is a sample format for a single-step income statement:
| Revenues | $1,000,000 |
| Total revenue | $1,000,000 |
| Expenses | |
| Cost of goods sold | 350,000 |
| Advertising | 30,000 |
| Depreciation | 20,000 |
| Rent | 40,000 |
| Payroll taxes | 28,000 |
| Salaries and wages | 400,000 |
| Supplies | 32,000 |
| Travel and entertainment | 50,000 |
| Total Expenses | $950,000 |
| Net Income | $50,000 |
The single-step format is not heavily used, because it forces readers of an income statement to separately summarize information for subsets of information within the income statement. For a more readable format, try the multi-step format.
Related Topics
Income statement overview
Condensed income statement
Multi step income statement
What is a cash basis income statement?
What is a comparative income statement?


