Bottom Line

  

If you’re the type that likes to tell long-winded stories, your friends might frequently ask, “Will you get to the bottom line?” Although, uh...there might be a few four-letter words thrown in there for effect.

In the finance world, the bottom line refers to the profit shown at the end of a company’s income statement that subtracts total costs from total revenue. It could be labeled as "net income" or "earnings per share."

If a company is not happy with its bottom line at the end of a month, quarter, or year, it has two choices: reduce costs or increase revenue (or both). Reducing costs could mean the painful experience of having to lay off employees, or trying to lower the cost of raw materials or administrative expenses. (Say good-bye to free coffee.)

As this tactic alone often results in a downward spiral, many decide it’s time to find new markets, introduce new products, sell properties, increase prices, or expand overseas in order to increase revenue. And if a bottom line is positive, the company could use the profit to issue a dividend, buy back stock, invest in new equipment, pay back loans...or bring back the free coffee.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is Earnings Per Share (EPS...33 Views

00:00

finance a la shmoop what is earnings per share or EPS? okay you know the lemonade

00:09

stand the one with 20 grand in sales and 16 grand in gross profits and yeah will [Balance sheet for Lemonade Stands R Us appears]

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spare you the gross jokes you know the customer asks lemonade.. what the fly

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was doing in his lemonade and yes of course she said the backstroke what else

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would you expect from the people at Schmo really?

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so after gross profits there were operating expenses like those and then

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operating profits down here that 7,500 thing then there were taxes and yeah

00:37

there are always taxes we can grumble about and then finally net income aka [Net income appears on balance sheet]

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earnings but then below earnings you'll see that there are a hundred shares in

00:47

this little company the founder owns 60 of them mom owns 10 the new stepdad owns

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20 he was guilted into it by you know the divorce lawyer and Enrique the

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gardener for some reason who has cleverly weaseled his way into the

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families arts and minds owns the last 10 its annual report time and the investors

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want to know what their earnings per share were so that they can all compare

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relative performance on their investments right so the total earnings

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of the company in this example was five thousand two hundred fifty bucks which

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means that the earnings per share of our little lemonade stand company here or

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that 5,250 figure divided by a hundred or 52.50 a share that's [EPS formula appears]

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what each share earned if you divvy the company into a hundred little pie slices

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or parts so yeah earnings per share equals earnings per slice o pie or wait

01:43

lemonade pie has that been done yet time for a new business venture what do you [A plate of lemonade pie appears]

01:47

think we're taking investors just call us please

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