Generating the Profit and Loss Statement

The Profit and Loss statement (also called an Income Statement) summarizes your revenue and expenses over a specific date range. It shows whether your business earned a profit or incurred a loss during that period. This requires the FIN_VIEW_REPORTS permission.

Opening the Profit and Loss Report

Navigate to Business > Profit & Loss from the main menu. The the Profit and Loss report form opens with default date range controls at the top.

Selecting a Date Range

The report includes two date pickers at the top of the form:

• Start Date (dtpStartDate) — The beginning of the reporting period
• End Date (dtpEndDate) — The end of the reporting period

By default, these are set to the first and last day of the current month. You can change them to any date range you need — a single week, a quarter, a full year, or any custom range. Click Refresh after changing the dates to reload the report with the new range.

Hierarchical Display Structure

The Profit and Loss report organizes accounts into a clear hierarchy:

REVENUE Section

The report begins with a REVENUE header row. Under this header, accounts are grouped by account type. Each account type appears as a sub-header, and the individual accounts within that type are listed below it with their amounts.

For example:

• REVENUE (section header)
  • Sales Income (account type sub-header)
    • Product Sales — $15,000.00
    • Service Revenue — $8,500.00
  • Other Income (account type sub-header)
    • Interest Income — $120.00

After all revenue accounts are listed, a Total Revenue row shows the sum of all revenue accounts.

COSTS Section

The COSTS section follows the same hierarchical pattern. It includes accounts classified under cost-of-goods-sold or direct cost account types. These represent the direct costs of producing or delivering your products and services.

EXPENSES Section

The EXPENSES section lists all operating expense accounts, again grouped by account type with sub-headers.

After all cost and expense accounts are listed, a Total Expenses row shows the combined sum of all costs and expenses.

NET INCOME Row

The final row of the report shows NET INCOME, calculated as Total Revenue minus Total Expenses. This is the bottom line of the report:

• Positive Net Income (profit) is displayed in green
• Negative Net Income (loss) is displayed in red

How Amounts Are Calculated

The Profit and Loss report calculates each account's amount based on transactions within the selected date range:

• Revenue accounts (credit-normal under the Income class) — The amount is calculated as credits minus debits. Since revenue is increased by credits, a normal revenue account will show a positive amount when it has more credits than debits.
• Cost and Expense accounts (debit-normal under the Costs and Expenses classes) — The amount is calculated as debits minus credits. Since expenses are increased by debits, a normal expense account will show a positive amount when it has more debits than credits.

This approach ensures that revenue is shown as a positive number and expenses are shown as a positive number, making the subtraction for Net Income straightforward: Revenue minus Expenses equals Net Income.

Location Filtering

Use the Location dropdown to filter the report by a specific business location. When filtered, only transactions associated with the selected location are included in the calculations. Select “All Locations” to see the combined Profit and Loss across the entire business.

Printing the Profit and Loss

Click the Print button to generate a printed version using the ReportPrinter. The printed report includes:

• Report title with the date range
• Location name (if filtered)
• The full hierarchical structure with section headers, type sub-headers, and account rows
• Total Revenue, Total Expenses, and Net Income rows

Drilling Down to Account Transactions

To investigate any account's amount:

• Right-click on an account row and select View Transactions, or
• Double-click on an account row

This opens the Account Transactions form filtered to the selected account and the same date range used in the report. You can see every transaction that contributes to the amount shown.

Tips

• Run monthly — Generate the Profit and Loss at the end of each month to track your profitability trend
• Compare to budget — Print the report and compare each line item to your budgeted amounts to identify variances
• Check the date range — Make sure the start and end dates cover the full period you want to analyze. A common mistake is forgetting to adjust the dates when looking at a prior month.
• Use drill-down for surprises — If an expense account shows an unexpectedly high amount, double-click it to see which transactions are responsible
• Run after the Trial Balance — Verify the Trial Balance is in balance before relying on the Profit and Loss figures