[loakley44]

Is it the same as comprehensive income

[morgaine300]

Conceptual framework earnings? That doesn't really have a meaning. The framework includes revenues and gains, and revenue recognition. The term "earnings" has no specific meaning. Some people mean net income. Some might mean income from continuing operations. Earnings per share means specifically earnings available to common stockholders, and there can even be more than one of those. That term is used a lot in financial analysis and could mean something different in different equations. I would not use the term earnings except in a specific context. (Granted, if you don't know otherwise, you could assume it means net income, which no, is not the same as comprehensive income.)

Comprehensive income is net income plus/minus any gains/losses that transfer directly to equity but don't go through the income statement. (The most common example of that is unrealized gains/losses on certain investments.) It's everything that affects equity except "stockholder activity" (i.e. investments by and distributions to the stockholders). The stuff that does not go through the income statement but affects equity is known as "other comprehensive income," which is in addition to the net income off the income statement.

That might make more sense to you when you get to a chapter dealing with something that goes into other comprehensive income -- it makes more sense in the context of dealing with those "other" items.