Profit & Loss Glossary

Business Revenue 

includes receipts from core business operations. Interest Income and Other income (such as rents and royalties) are generally detailed separately below Operating Income. While Income is separated from Interest Income for most classifications, Income includes interest income from the private sector where it is central to financial industry operations, including Finance and Insurance (NAICS 52xxxx except NAICS 5242xx Insurance Brokers and Other Insurance Activities); Real Estate-Rental-Leasing (53xxxx); and Management of Companies and Enterprises (55xxxxx).

Cost of Sales

 includes materials and labor involved in the direct delivery of a product or service. Other costs are included in the cost of sales to the extent that they are involved in bringing goods to their location and condition ready to be sold. Non-production overheads such as development costs may be attributable to the cost of goods sold. The costs of services provided will consist primarily of personnel directly engaged in providing the service, including supervisory personnel and attributable overhead.

Gross Margin 

represents direct operating expenses plus net profit. In addition to the labor portion of Cost of Sales, wage costs are reflected in the Officers Compensation and Wages-Salary line items. In many cases, SG&A (Sales, General and Administrative) costs also include some overhead, administrative and supervisory wages.

Rent 

covers the rental cost of any business property, including land, buildings and equipment.

The Taxes paid line item 

includes payroll other paid-in tax items, but not business income taxes due for the period. Although it can be calculated in many ways and is a controversial measure, the EBITDA line item (Earnings before Interest Expense, income tax due, Depreciation and Amortization) adds back interest payments, depreciation, amortization and depletion allowances, and excludes income taxes due to reduce the effect of accounting decisions on the bottom line of the Profit and Loss Statement. Since some firms utilize EBITDA to "add back" non-cash and flexible expenses which may be altered through credits and accounting procedures (such as income tax), paid-in income taxes from the Taxes Paid line item are not added back in the EBITDA calculation.

Advertising 

includes advertising, promotion and publicity for the reporting business, but not on behalf of others.

Benefits-Pension 

includes, but is not limited to, employee health care and retirement costs. In addition to varying proportions of overhead, administrative and supervisory wages, some generally more minor expenses are aggregated under SG&A (Sales, General and Administrative).

Operating Expenses 

sums the individual expense line items above, yielding the Operating Income or net of core business operations, when subtracted from the Gross Margin.

Pre-Tax Net Profit 

represents net profit before income tax due. Income Tax calculates the federal corporate tax rate before credits, leaving After-Tax Profit at the bottom line.

Discretionary Owner Earnings 

sums Officer Compensation, Depreciation and related non-cash expenses and Net Profit after business taxes to represent a practical measure of total return to owners. The D.O.E. metric is mainly used for small businesses.