bottom line

1. The line in a financial statement that shows net income or loss.
2. The final result or statement; upshot: “The bottom line, however, is that he has escaped” (David Wise).
3. The main or essential point: “A lot can happen between now and December, but the bottom line—for now—is that the city is still heading toward default” (New York).

1. Concerned exclusively with costs and profits: bottom-line issues.
2. Ruthlessly realistic; pragmatic: a bottom-line political strategy.

Refers to a company's net earnings, net income or earnings per share (EPS). Bottom line also refers to any actions that may increase/decrease net earnings or a company's overall profit. A company that is growing its net earnings or reducing its costs is said to be "improving its bottom line".

Investopedia Says:
The reference to "bottom" describes the relative location of the net income figure on a company's income statement; it will almost always be the last line at the bottom of the page. This reflects the fact that all expenses have already been taken out of revenues, and there is nothing left to subtract. This stands in contrast to revenues, which are considered the "top line" figures.

Most companies aim to improve their bottom lines through two simultaneous methods: growing revenues (i.e., generate top-line growth) and increasing efficiency (or cutting costs).

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Net profit or loss. It is often used as an expression when seeking the result without asking for the reasons, as in ‘What is the bottom line?'

The ultimate result, the upshot; also, the main point or crucial factor. For example, The bottom line is that the chairman wants to dictate all of the board's decisions, or Whether or not he obeyed the law is the bottom line. This is an accounting term that refers to the earnings figures that appear on the bottom (last) line of a statement. It began to be transferred to other contexts in the mid-1900s.

The bottom line is, it's hard to tell when Americans truly began to focus on the term bottom line. We find an isolated early instance in 1967 from the San Francisco Examiner: "George Murphy and Ronald Reagan certainly qualified because they have gotten elected. I think that's the bottom line." In 1970 comes a financial attestation, in a book called Up the Organization: "All overheads should be brought down to the bottom line for bonus purposes on principles agreed to in advance." After that, bottom line became an established way of saying we were all business. "IBM has always been heavy on corporate paternalism," noted Newsweek in 1971. "Learson may well be willing to sacrifice some of that for those results on the bottom line." And in Harper's Bazaar that year: "His only interest is in the bottom line. He doesn't know or care about books or art or music or even his own wife--only about the bottom line."

The revolutionary, anti-authoritarian 1960s were over, and we were getting back to business. Today the bottom line is "the main theme, the final result, the end rather than the means." It can have any subject, even cigars, as in this 1973 question and answer: "Do you miss our Havana cigars?" "Well, in answer to that, and to get to the bottom line, I don't smoke."

We remain committed to bottom line in all sorts of contexts. In the Web pages of Heaven's Gate, whose members departed this world by poisoning themselves at Easter 1997 as the Hale-Bopp comet passed by, we find the heading "Do's Intro: Purpose--Belief: What Our Purpose Is--The Simple 'Bottom Line.'"

The last line in an audit, which shows profit or loss.

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