What is a statement of comprehensive income?

There’s a huge number of financial documents involved in running a business. Most of them are very helpful for understanding your company’s finances, but they can also be quite complex to put together.

This article will serve as a guide for creating a statement of comprehensive income, which is one of the more difficult financial documents you may need to make. The topics we’ll cover in this article include:

• What is a statement of comprehensive income?
• What should I include in a statement of comprehensive income?
• Why is a statement of comprehensive income important?
• How can Countingup help create a statement of comprehensive income?

A statement of comprehensive income shows all the details of your company’s cash flow, meaning it shows all the money your company made and spent during a given period. It also displays the total loss or profit your company made.

A statement of comprehensive income is very similar to an income statement. It will include all of your income sources and your business expenses, and will show the total profit left when you subtract the expenses from the income. 

Both documents also only display figures from one particular period — you shouldn’t alter them to reflect what’s currently happening with your company’s finances. 

The key difference between a statement of comprehensive income and an income statement is that the former includes a list of what’s known as ‘other comprehensive income’. Your other comprehensive income includes all of the unrealised gains and losses your business has made during the period your statement looks at.

If you have a business asset that’s worth more than it was when you purchased it, and you’ve not yet sold that asset, the difference between the old price and the new price is called an unrealised gain. 

Similarly, if the asset is worth less than it used to be, the difference is an unrealised loss. In contrast, realised gains and losses are when you eventually do sell off the assets.

Business assets are anything that’s part of your business and is worth money. Property, equipment, and even your stock inventory are all examples of assets. Property increasing and decreasing in value is a common source of unrealised gains. 

A statement of comprehensive income will only show you the financial info for a set period, so it’s important to include the dates involved. This period can be any length of time (months, weeks or years). Still, the longer a period your statement looks at, the more complicated it will be.

Revenue is the money your business has made from the main thing it does (also known as its primary operations), whether that’s selling products or providing a service. 

This is the money you’ve had to spend to continue your primary operations. The money you use to buy more stock or raw materials is a part of the cost of goods sold (or cost of sales).

This is a large category as it includes everything from employee wages and maintenance costs to utility and rent bills. Taxes are also an expense, but in a formal statement of comprehensive income they should have their own section.

One of the most valuable parts of a statement of comprehensive income is that it doesn’t just show all the incoming and outgoing cash. It also provides your net total, so you know if your business is making money or not. The net profit or loss shown on the statement should represent how much money is left once you subtract your expenses from your income. 

This is the defining feature of a statement of comprehensive income. As discussed, a section on other comprehensive income lists the unrealised gains of your business. This list is important to have because even if these gains aren’t in cash, they’re still a part of your company’s overall value. The most common example is property that has changed in value over time.

The enormous amount of detail in a statement of comprehensive income makes it hugely valuable in financial management. Seeing how much money your company has made or lost in a set period might have a significant effect on your future financial decisions.

In particular, the inclusion of unrealised profits on the statement provides a sort of safety net for your business. If your business is struggling, but you have a large amount of money in assets with unrealised gains, you can sell off those assets to help you make ends meet.

Creating a statement of comprehensive income requires you to check and recheck a lot of your company’s financial information. Instead of having to reference separate pieces of paperwork or check multiple apps, consider putting all your financial data in one place. A good option for this is to use a Countingup business account.

For instance, using Countingup for your company’s finances means that when you create a statement of comprehensive income, you’ll only need to log into the Countingup app to view all of your financial transactions. On top of that, the app can automatically categorise your transactions, so finding the relevant data will be quick and easy. 

Countingup is the business current account with built-in accounting software that allows you to manage all your financial data in one place. With features like invoicing on the go, receipt capture tools, tax estimates, and cash flow insights, you can confidently keep on top of your business finances wherever you are. 

You can also share your bookkeeping with your accountant instantly without worrying about duplication errors, data lags or inaccuracies. Seamless, simple, and straightforward! 

Find out more here.