Profit margin by product

Question asked by Kevin Doran 11 years ago

Copied from UKBF

Hi Guys,

I am a sole trader but things are getting too complex with the excel approach to book-keeping, there are too many things which can go wrong. Anyhow, I am looking at the online software approach and have tried a couple (Kashflow & Freeagent) but immediately hit a problem - they don't look for the 'cost price' of my goods. They work out profit based upon what comes in minus what goes out. That is great for the tax man, but useless when I try to analyse the business. For instance, I see no way that one can extract how much profit you make on one customer, or what proportion of your profits come from various products. At the moment, with excel, I can input the cost price of each item and then it is an easy step to work out how much profit you make on individual transactions, customers etc. I know that the full blown sage package can have a cost price input but I couldnt justify the expense. So can anyone suggest anything else?

Apart from this requirement, I would be pretty easy on requirements. I don't need stock control, I don't need payroll, just want to be able to do quotes/invoices/delivery notes, purchase orders, record misc business transactions and have it come out with VAT numbers which can easily be relayed to HMRC...

I'm abroad right now so little time to look into this but can we handle specific reports of this nature? I can't remember off the top of my head.

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3 Replies

Very jealous Kevin!

At the moment we don't have too many more other ways of analysing the data. However, I do agree that this is a good idea and, if you put it down in the ideas section, we can see just how many other users are interested in this sort of specificity too.

Chris

Best answer
11 years ago

Hi Kevin, I hope you are having a good time abroad!? If you look at Reports > Financials you will see that we have a range of report types available to you. For example, you can view transactions by customer or supplier, including Payments and bills by suppliers and payments and income by customer.

I hope this answers your query. If there is anything else, please let me know.

Many thanks Chris

11 years ago

Hi Chris

Having a great time thanks and another glorious week to go yet!

Touching on this part of the post specifically:

"For instance, I see no way that one can extract how much profit you make on one customer, or what proportion of your profits come from various products. At the moment, with excel, I can input the cost price of each item and then it is an easy step to work out how much profit you make on individual transactions, customers etc."

Can we provide something to that level of detail?

11 years ago

Very jealous Kevin!

At the moment we don't have too many more other ways of analysing the data. However, I do agree that this is a good idea and, if you put it down in the ideas section, we can see just how many other users are interested in this sort of specificity too.

Chris

Best answer
11 years ago

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