Run Your Profit & Loss

Your Profit & Loss (P&LP&LProfit and loss statement. Shows your sales, costs and profit for a period.) is the report that tells you how the restaurant is really doing: what came in, what it cost to get it out the door, and what’s left over. In DishBooks you can run it for one location or all of them, for any date range, and with views built for restaurants, like Prime CostPrime costCOGS plus total labor cost. Usually a restaurant's biggest controllable expense..

This article walks you through running your P&L, picking the right options and reading the results.

Before you start

• Your chart of accounts is set up. The P&L is built from your GL accountsGL accountGeneral ledger account. One of the named buckets on your books, like Food Sales or Sales Tax Payable, that every dollar is sorted into..
• Your calendar is set up if you want to compare by period, quarter or year.
• Your sales and bills for the date range are in and approved. Unapproved transactions don’t show up unless you turn on Show unapproved.

Step 1 Open the Reports page

Click Reports in the sidebar. Your reports are grouped into Financial Statements, Accounting, Payables & Receivables and Budgeting & Forecasting, each with a short description.

Under Financial Statements, click Run next to Profit & Loss. Your P&L opens right away for Year to date, with the Full template, Total columns, Detailed level and Hide $0 balances on.

Step 2 Choose your report options

To change what the report shows, click Options at the top right, or click any of the chips under the title (Date range, Location, Template or Hide $0 balances). The Report options window opens. Nothing changes until you click Run report, so take your time.

Date range and View By

View By decides how you pick your dates. Leave it on Dates to choose a Preset: Current month, Last month, Last 30 days, Last 90 days, Last 12 months or Year to date. Or choose Custom and set your own From and To dates.

Choose Fiscal calendar or Operational calendar to pick whole periods instead. Presets become Current period, Last period, Current quarter, Last quarter, Year to date, Last year or Custom, each showing what it covers today. With Custom, From and To become period lists, and To can stay Same as From. Pick one of your calendars, and Columns adds Period, Quarter and Year for it.

Entity and location

Leave All entities and All locations checked to see the whole group, or check just the ones you want. Use the search boxes if you have a long list. Locations are grouped under their entity.

Template

The template decides how your P&L is laid out. DishBooks comes with three:

• Full: your whole P&L, every account from top to bottom.
• Prime Cost: sales, then your cost of goods plus labor, the two biggest costs in any restaurant, down to Gross Profit.
• Operating: prime cost plus operating expenses, down to EBITDA. It leaves out corporate overhead, other expenses and other income, which a GM doesn’t need to see. Perfect for sharing with your managers.

You only see the templates you have access to.

Columns

Choose how the numbers are split across the page:

• Total: one column for the whole date range.
• Entity or Location: a column for each, side by side. Great for seeing which restaurant is pulling its weight.
• Month: a column for each month.
• Period, Quarter or Year: compare by the periods in your fiscal or operational calendar. These follow the calendars you set up. See Set up your calendar.

Detail level

• Detailed: every GL account.
• Summary: just the totals for each group, for a quick read.

Switches

• Compare: sets two things side by side, with the difference between them. See “Compare two columns” below.
• Show unapproved: includes transactions that haven’t been approved yet. Handy for an early look before you close the month.
• Hide $0 balances: leaves out accounts with nothing in them, so the report is shorter.

Click Run report.

Compare two columns

Turn on Compare to set two things against each other, like this month and the same month last year, or two locations. It replaces Columns, since the comparison sets the columns.

1. Under Compare by, choose what you’re comparing: Entity, Location, Month, or Period, Quarter or Year when View By is one of your calendars.
2. Pick the First and Second to compare. Click the arrows between them to swap the two.
3. To add another comparison, click Add comparison. Click the × to remove one.
4. Click Run report.

Each comparison adds three columns: First, Second and Variance, which is the Second minus the First. Variance also shows a percent. A Variance figure doesn’t open the General ledger. The two picks need to be different, or the comparison is left out. A month can fall outside your date range, and a location outside your Location filter.

Save your options as a view

If you run the same P&L every week, save its options as a view. At the top of Report options, the View box lists your saved views.

• Save a view: set the options you want, click Save as view, type a Name your view and click Save view. It keeps your options and filters, including Compare, but not your From and To dates. Saving doesn’t run the report.
• Use a view: open the View list, pick one, then click Run report. The report’s dates stay as they are, unless the view was saved with a preset or a View By calendar.
• Delete a view: click the trash can next to it, then Delete view. The report on screen doesn’t change.

Views are yours alone, and each report keeps its own list. The view you ran shows as a View chip under the title.

Step 3 Read your P&L

The chips under the title show the options you’re looking at, so you always know what’s on the screen.

• Groups and totals: accounts sit under their parent account, with a total under each group (like Total Food Sales). You set these up with Parent account on your GL accounts.
• The percent column: each line as a percent of the sales account you chose under Percent of account on that GL account. Food cost against food sales, beer cost against beer sales. With nothing chosen, it’s a percent of total sales. This is how you spot a cost creeping up before it hurts.
• Discounts and comps: they show up right under the sales they came from, so you can see what you gave away.

See what’s behind a number

Click any line on your P&L. The General ledger opens for that account, with every transaction that makes up the number: the date, vendor or customer, location, and a running balance.

Use the column filters to narrow it down, or click Export CSV to download the list. This is the fastest way to answer “why is meat cost so high this month?”

Share your P&L

Click Export at the top right to download your report as a CSV or PDF.

Need to make a change?

Want a different month, another location or a different template? Click Options or any chip at the top, change what you need and click Run report. Your report updates in place.

Numbers look off? Click the line to open the transactions behind it (see Step 3).

Build your own template

Want a P&L laid out your way, like one for your kitchen manager with just food sales and food cost? Make your own template.

1. Click Manage Templates at the top of the P&L, then click New template.

2. Give it a Name.

3. Under Sections, set up each part of your report. Name the section, then choose Group to list several GL classes together, Single class for one GL class, or Total to add a line that adds up every section above it, like Gross Profit.

4. Click + GL class to add the types of accounts that belong in each group. Click the × to remove one.

5. Drag sections and classes by their handles to put them in order. Click the trash can to remove a section.

6. Click Save.

   

Your template shows up in the Template list in Report options. Everyone with full P&L access sees it. To share it with someone who has limited P&L access, open the template and click Add user under View permissions.

You can also change Prime Cost and Operating in Manage Templates, or delete them. Full is locked, so it always stays as it comes.

Tips and common questions

What’s prime cost, and why does it matter?

Prime cost is your cost of goods plus your labor. It’s usually the biggest chunk of a restaurant’s spending, so it’s the first number to watch. Run the Prime Cost template every period.

How do I compare my locations side by side?

Set Columns to Location.

How do I see this period against last period?

Turn on Compare, set View By to a calendar, then choose Compare by Period and pick the two periods. You get both, plus the Variance. For every period side by side, set Columns to Period, Quarter or Year instead. Both follow your fiscal or operational calendar, so set that up first.

I don’t see Fiscal calendar or Operational calendar under View By.

Every entity in the report needs that calendar. See Set up your calendar.

Why doesn’t my P&L match what I expected?

Check the date range and locations in the chips first. Then check for unapproved bills or sales: turn on Show unapproved to see if they’re the difference.

My report is really long.

Switch Detail level to Summary. Hide $0 balances is already on by default, so check it hasn’t been turned off.

What’s next

You know what you earned. Now see what you own and owe.