5 Key Areas of a Profit and Loss Statement and how to Interpret

As a business owner, you need a good picture of the financial health of your business at ALL TIMES. Your P&L is a good indicator of the financial status of your company. If financials are not your strongest suit,  you might not understand the importance of your P&L – let alone understand it.

Keeping Score of your Financials 

Think of it like this, when watching or playing sport, we know how our team is doing by checking the score. Throughout the game, the score is kept and at the end, the final score tells us how we went against the other team.  Your P&L is how you keep score of your business! 

The P&L is one of the most important pieces of bookkeeping with which you should be familiar. For one, it is one of the primary documents that you will need to provide if you want to acquire financing. It shows banks and investors your company’s income, debt load and overall stability.  

Secondly, it tells you if your business is profitable. It is astonishing just how many small businesses really have no idea if they are making a profit or not. If they are making sales, everything is good right? Well no, not exactly…. 

If you are only looking at revenue to determine how your business is doing, you do not have an accurate or realistic picture of what’s actually going on in your business. Revenue or income is just one of the items on the P&L. That is before everything else, such as the cost of goods sold and fixed or operational expenses have been deducted. 

Thirdly, many companies are required by law or association membership to complete P&L. Your Profit and Loss Statement can cover a week, a month, a quarter or a year. Ideally, you should be looking at your P&L on a weekly and monthly basis to truly keep track and control what’s happening in your business.  Weekly, for businesses who have high frequency, high volume transactions such as bakeries and Monthly for businesses who have low frequency, low volume transactions, such as builders or tradies. 

THE 5 KEY AREAS

1.  Revenue

Revenue or income is what you are bringing in from the sales of your products or services. Revenue is obviously critically important because it is the money you have available to cover your expenses. If your revenue is low, then you will need to lower your expenses to stay profitable or make a plan to increase your sales to ensure that you on track to achieving your goals for the month and quarter.  

2.  Cost of Goods Sold

These are the costs that you have incurred to buy, make or deliver your products and services. There are various direct costs associated with selling every product, from bicycles to sandwiches and milkshakes. You need to account for these costs for a true reflection of what it costs you to actually sell your products.  

In a service business, this is often called the Cost of Service. If you are in a services industry such as a photographer or a consultant, your Cost of Service could include any expenses associated with providing your services such as your time, printing, travel, accommodation and photocopying costs. 

3. Gross Profit

Your Gross Profit is what you have left after you have deducted your Cost of Goods Sold from your Revenue. This is what you have available to run the rest of your business. When you have a high gross profit, it means that it costs you very little to deliver your product or service and you have a healthy supply of money from every sale to cover your other expenses not associated with your product or service. The Gross Profit percentage represents this number as a percentage. The higher the percentage the better! 

4. Fixed Expenses

Your Fixed or Operational expenses are the additional costs you have to pay every month. This is what it costs you to stay open, before you have produced or sold anything. Here, we are talking about rent, leases, wages, insurances, marketing and utilities.  

5. Net Profit

Your Net Profit is the final amount that you have left once you have covered the cost of producing and selling your products or services, as well as the operational expenses incurred simply to stay open. This is your bottom line. It is the amount of money you actually made. This is your profit! 

Your P&L gives you the bigger picture of the true costs of running your business and the money you have actually made. It will also provide you with very important information to guide decision making and set goals. Check your P&L’s regularly – it will help you keep score!