Small business accounting software reviews mainly focus on contents of profit and loss account. It is also known by several other titles such as income statement, statement of earnings, statement of operations and profit and loss statement. While the balance sheet, as a stock/position statement, reveals the financial condition of a business at a particular point of time, the profit and loss account portrays, as a flow statement, the operations over/during a particular period of time. The period of time is an accounting period.

Since the purpose of every business firm is to earn profit, the operations of a firm in a given period of time will truly be reflected in the profit earned by it. Thus, the income statement/profit and loss account of a firm reports the results of operations in terms of income/net profit in a year. The profit and loss account can be presented broadly in two forms: the usual account form and step form.

In operational terms, the accounting report that summarizes the revenue items, the expense items and the difference between them (net income) for an accounting period is called the income statement. There are three contents of the profit and loss account: revenues, expenses and net income/profit/loss.

Revenues can be defined as the income that accrues to the firm by the sale of goods/services/assets or by the supply of the firms resources to others. Alternatively, revenues mean the value that a firm receives from its customers. The value/income can arise from three sources: sale of products/goods/services, supply of firm resources to others, and sale of assets like production plants, investments, and so on. The cost of earning revenue is called expenses. An important item of expense appearing in the profit and loss account is the cost of goods sold. The difference between revenues and expenses is net profit. The profit and loss account may also show the appropriation of the net profits between dividends paid to the shareholders and retained earnings/ amount transferred to reserves and surplus.