Profit & Loss Analysis

Investigates income and expenses interactively. Where the printed statement gives a total, this screen lets you open it up: start at account type, drill through accounts to the transactions behind a figure, and compare one period against another to see what actually changed. The usual way to answer "why were expenses higher this month". Access from Ledger › Operations › Profit & Loss Analysis.

Selection Criteria

Sets what is analysed. Press Refresh after changing any of these. Unlike a balance sheet, profit and loss covers a period rather than a moment, so the date range is central rather than a single as-at date.

Store

Limits the analysis to one store. Leave empty to consolidate all stores. Setting it is how you compare the trading performance of one location against another.

Date Range

Preset period such as This Month or Last Quarter. Choosing one fills in From and To.

From

First day included.

To

Last day included.

Period

How the range is divided for comparison: Day, Week, Month, Quarter, or Year. Month is the usual choice for spotting trends across a year.

Shows the current drill path — account type, then account, then transactions — so you can see which subtotal the list below belongs to.

Drill-down Tab

Opens at account type level — revenue, cost of goods, expenses. Double-click a row to go deeper; Back returns one level. The deepest level lists the individual transactions, so an unexpected expense total can be traced to the documents that caused it.

Drill-down List

The current level of the analysis.

Column	Description
Name	Account type or account at this level.
Type	The account type, shown once you have drilled into accounts.
Debits	Total debits posted in the period.
Credits	Total credits posted in the period.
Net	Debits less credits — the figure that appears on the statement. Revenue accounts show a credit balance and expenses a debit balance, so the sign indicates which side an account is behaving on.

At transaction level the list shows the document detail:

Column	Description
Type	Kind of transaction.
Number	Document number.
Store	Store the transaction was posted at.
Memo	Memo recorded on the transaction.
Debit	Debit amount.
Credit	Credit amount.

Comparison Tab

Sets one period's results against another. This is where seasonality and cost creep show up: a Diff % well outside the norm on a single expense account is far easier to spot here than on two printed statements side by side.

Comparison List

Period-over-period figures per account or type.

Column	Description
Account/Type	The account or account type being compared.
Difference	Change between the two periods, in currency.
Diff %	The same change as a percentage. Sort on this to bring the largest proportional movements to the top regardless of account size.

Actions

Refresh

Rebuilds the analysis with the current criteria, returning to the top level.

Back

Moves up one drill-down level.

Print

Prints the list currently displayed, at whatever level you have drilled to.

Close

Closes the screen.

Related Screens

Balance Sheet Analysis

Account Master

Inquiry

Accounts Guide