A profit and loss statement (P&L), also called an income statement, reports what a company earned and spent over a period — a quarter or a financial year — and what was left over at the end. Unlike a balance sheet, which is a snapshot at one date, a P&L covers a stretch of time.

Revenue sits at the top: the money a company earned from its core business during the period, before any costs are subtracted. From revenue, a P&L works down through several layers of expense. Operating profit — revenue minus the direct costs of running the business, such as raw materials, employee costs, and other operating expenses — is what's left before accounting for depreciation, interest, and tax. Dividing operating profit by revenue gives the operating profit margin (OPM), a percentage that shows how much of every rupee of revenue a company kept before those later charges.

Below operating profit come depreciation (the accounting charge for wearing down physical assets like plant and machinery over their useful life) and finance costs (interest paid on borrowings). What remains after subtracting both is profit before tax (PBT). Subtracting tax gives net profit (also called profit after tax, or PAT) — the figure that ultimately belongs to shareholders.

Earnings per share (EPS) divides net profit by the number of shares outstanding, expressing profit on a per-share basis rather than as a single company-wide number — useful for comparing profitability across companies of different sizes, or across a single company's own results over time regardless of any share count changes.

Net margin — net profit divided by revenue — shows what share of revenue ultimately became profit after every expense, including tax and interest, is accounted for. Comparing operating margin to net margin for the same period shows how much of a company's profitability comes from the core business itself versus how much is affected by depreciation, debt costs, and tax.

A P&L is reported for both a full financial year (annual) and each quarter, and this app shows both: annual figures reveal the underlying trend over several years, while quarterly figures show more recent, shorter-term movement — useful for spotting a change in trajectory before a full year has closed. A single quarter can also be unusually high or low for reasons that even out over a year, such as a large one-time cost, which is part of why both views matter together.