A profit and loss (P&L) statement is a financial statement that summarizes the revenues and costs incurred by your business during a specified period. You can use a P&L statement to analyze the financial health of your company.

A P&L statement is a spreadsheet-like document. It showcases the revenues of your business towards the top, and subtracts the costs to end up with the profit at the bottom.

For a commerce focused company, there are four important components to a P&L statement.

The most important category. This shows all the money your business has generated over a period of time.

Slash categorizes all credits into your account (except those you initiate to fund it) as revenue. Example transactions that might get automatically categorized into revenue include:

All expenses incurred to generate revenue should go here. If you run a reselling or e-commerce business, the main expenses you'll want to add to your COGS are:

Your operating expenses are those that you incur to keep your business running, but not to directly generate revenue. Examples of expenses you'll want to add to your OPEX include:

This is a calculated row. It will simply take your revenue and subtract your Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and Operating Expenses (OPEX). If a number is in parentheses, it means it's negative, but if it's not, it means it's positive and you've made money!