"Profit and Loss" sounds like something only accountants care about. In reality it's the single most useful number in your business: did you make money this month, or not? You don't need an accounting degree to read one — you just need your income and your expenses in the same place.
What a P&L actually is
A Profit & Loss statement is a simple subtraction over a period of time:
Revenue − Expenses = Net Profit (or Loss)
That's it. Everything else is detail. If you collected ₹1,50,000 and spent ₹90,000 running the business, your net profit is ₹60,000 for that period.
The numbers that matter
- Revenue collected — money that actually came in (paid invoices), not what you hope to collect.
- Total expenses — everything you spent to earn that revenue.
- Net profit — what's left. This is your real earning.
- Margin — net profit as a percentage of revenue. A 40% margin means you keep ₹40 of every ₹100.
Cash basis vs. accrual — keep it simple
Large companies count revenue when they raise an invoice (accrual). Most freelancers and small businesses are better off counting revenue when they get paid (cash basis) — it matches your bank account and avoids counting money you haven't received. Stickman's P&L uses paid invoices, so the numbers reconcile with reality.
Don't forget the GST summary
For GST-registered businesses, P&L has a tax twin: the GST summary. It nets two numbers:
- Output GST — the GST you collected on your sales.
- Input GST (ITC) — the GST you paid on business expenses.
The difference is roughly what you owe (or can carry forward). Seeing this every month means no nasty surprises at filing time. (Always confirm the final figure with your CA before filing.)
How to read your P&L each month
- Is net profit positive? If not, which expense category grew?
- Is your margin steady, improving, or slipping?
- Which categories eat the most — and are they earning their keep?
- Is your net GST position what you expected?
Make it automatic
The reason most small businesses don't look at their P&L is that building one by hand is tedious. When your invoices and expenses live in the same tool, the P&L builds itself — revenue vs expenses, net profit, margin, a six-month trend and the GST summary, for any period you choose.
That's what Stickman's Profit & Loss report gives you on the Pro and Business plans: open it, pick a period, and see exactly how your business is doing.