In this section, you will enter your total sales, cost of goods, and expenses from your profit and loss statement.

This is a summarized profit and loss so you may need to combine some of your accounts.

You have the option of entering your company name and a description if you want them to appear on a printout for your own use. For example, a good description would be Year-End December 31, 2002 or Month-End January 2003.

Amounts in this analyzer are rounded to the nearest dollar. If you enter cents, they will be ignored.

In this analyzer, we assume that Cost of Goods Sold are variable. If you don't have Cost of Goods Sold on your financial statements, leave this field blank.

A fixed cost is an expense that does not vary with sales. These are costs that are incurred whether or not any sales are made. A variable cost is an expense that varies directly with sales. Variable costs are incurred only if sales are made. If you are unsure about whether an expense is fixed or variable, be conservative and mark it fixed. Marking a cost as fixed, rather than variable, causes your break-even point to be higher. If some of your costs are mixed, enter the amount that is variable into a variable area, then enter the fixed amount into the "Total Other Fixed Expenses" area.

If your product can be measured in just one type of unit--such as yards, customer transactions, or hours--enter either the number of units sold or the unit sales price here:

6. You can now see your calculated net profit.

These numbers should match closely to the financial statements used to supply this calculation.

Next, we'll ask "what if?" by dollar and/or by unit to create your analysis.

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