How to Find Net Income From the Increase in Stockholders Equity

Net income and stockholders' equity are related because they appear on a company's financial statements, either the income statement or balance sheet, and offer insight into its financial health. Stockholders' equity, or shareholders' equity, is calculated by taking the company's assets minus total liabilities. If you know a company's total retained earnings at the start and end of the year, and the total dividend payments in that year, you can figure out the company's net income.

Stockholders are the business owners of a company. The amount of stockholders' equity, also called owner's equity or shareholders' equity, in a business is the value of that business after all operating expenses and liabilities are paid off and dividends are paid out.

Whereas book value or net assets are the total amounts of a company's assets, shareholders' equity is a company's net worth in a given period after liabilities are subtracted from total assets.

In the most basic accounting equation, Stockholders' Equity = Assets - Liabilities.

If the total current assets of a business are $100,000 and liabilities total $50,000, then stockholders' equity is $50,000. However, there can be other line items and equity accounts that impact the outcome of the basic shareholder equity formula and bottom line.

If additional shares of common stock or preferred stock are sold during the year or shareholders invest capital into the business, these activities will influence the balance sheet and stockholders' equity by increasing the company's valuation. Similarly, a company's total treasury stock, or reacquired stock, in an accounting period reduces shareholder equity, explains the Corporate Finance Institute.

According to SCORE, on a typical balance sheet, retained earnings appear toward the bottom of the sheet in the shareholders' equity section. The difference in retained earnings in an accounting period is part of calculating net income.

Retained earnings are the accumulated earnings that a company has left after paying all operating costs and distributing dividends to shareholders. This is related to net profit, but dividend payments to stockholders must also be part of the equation. The net loss of a business will also impact retained earnings.

Retained earnings are not a measurement of cash flow. Where a cash flow statement details the cash that comes in and goes out through a company's financial activities, retained earnings is a metric related to the valuation of the business for stockholders.

Cash dividends to shareholders are payouts that must be calculated as part of the difference in retained earnings to determine the net income of a business.

Since the net income formula is simply total revenue minus total expenses, you can use change in retained earnings and stockholders' equity to determine net income. It will be the amount of money left after all capital in and liabilities out in a given period.

If you know a company's total retained earnings at the start of the year were $250,000 and ended at $350,000, that means that after all total expenses, the company made $100,000. To get the company's net income, subtract the total dividend payments to shareholders. If dividend payouts totaled $75,000, the company's net income for that accounting period was $25,000.

Along the same lines, if you know the difference in stockholders’ equity and any other inflows of capital or payouts of dividends, you can calculate net income.

The CFI mentions that the return on equity formula is a financial ratio used to measure the financial health of a business. The accounting equation for ROE is net income, or net earnings, minus income taxes and divided by shareholders’ equity.

The return on equity of a business is a metric that can be tracked over time and compared against the industry average ROE to estimate a company's profitability and monitor its use of earnings. NYU Stern provides a list to use. Lenders may look at ROE to assess profit margin and see how a business excels at using shareholder capital.

You won’t find stockholders' equity on an income statement. You’ll find shareholder equity toward the bottom of a company's balance sheet, after the asset and liability sections. Shareholders will also learn about total shareholder equity in a company's annual report.

Companies typically report at the end of an accounting period via a statement of stockholders' equity. This outlines important details for stockholders such as the net income, common stock, preferred stock, treasury stock, paid-in capital and retained earnings.