Modeling the IS - in what order do you list the line items?

Started a new job at a bank, and love it, but I don't have too much experience in building an operating model. Would appreciate to hear from those with more experience.

Question: I'd like to know a good logical order to use to present the line items of the income statement.

- Do you usually put EBITDA before EBIT?
- Do you exclude D&A from COGS or from SG&A?

In Training the Street, they teach:

Sales
(COGS excl. depreciation)
= Gross Profit

(SG&A excl. amortization)
= EBITDA

Dep
Amort

= EBIT

That order is very logical, but getting (COGS-Dep.) and (SG&A-Amort.) is not always easy. Sometimes D&A is listed together, sometimes I'm not sure if that stuff was a component of COGS or SG&A, etc.

So I've sometimes used:

Sales
(COGS)
= Gross profit

(SG&A)
= EBIT

+ D&A
= EBITDA

.... then I take away tax, interest, etc. from EBIT. So EBITDA is sort of sticking out in the middle, and the logic doesn't flow quite as well as you move from the top to the bottom.

What do you guys do? Thx.

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