WragbyWbizManager

Statement of Profit or Loss

See revenue, costs and profit for a month, quarter or year, compare it with the prior period or prior year, or lay it out month by month.

For finance managers and accountantsUpdated 4 Nov 2026

Before you start

  • Set up the chart of accountsStatement Mapping decides which line each revenue and expense group lands on (cost of sales, operating expenses, other income and so on).
  • Close a periodMonths, quarters, year to date and fiscal year come from your fiscal years and their periods.
  • Set up dimensionsOnly if you want the statement for one department, project or other dimension value.
In this article
  1. Steps
  2. How the figures are worked out
  3. Good to know
  4. Related reports

The Statement of Profit or Loss & Other Comprehensive Income shows what you earned and spent in a period, and the profit left over. It counts only postings inside the period. The old Income Statement address now opens this report with the same filters.

Steps

  1. Open the statement and choose the period

    In the menu on the left, select Reports, then Statement of Profit or Loss & Other Comprehensive Income. (It's also under Financial Statements › Profit or Loss.)

    1. Period: Month, Quarter, Year to date, Fiscal year or Custom dates.
    2. Up to (or A date in the period): a date inside the period. For Year to date, the statement runs from the start of the fiscal year to this date.
    3. Show: tick Prior period and/or Prior year to add comparison columns, or 12-month view for one column per fiscal month.
    4. More Filters: limit the statement to one or more dimension values.
    5. Run prepares the statement.
    6. Export to Excel downloads it with the same columns.
    7. The period the figures cover, for example FY2026 to 04 Nov 2026.
    8. Groups the statement had to guess where to place. Set them in Statement Mapping.

  2. Read the statement

    The statement runs from revenue down to profit for the period. Each group opens into its categories.

    1. Cost of sales with its groups and categories, then Total cost of sales.
    2. Gross profit: total revenue less total cost of sales.
    3. Operating expenses, group by group.

    Negative amounts are in brackets and red. A cost in brackets means more was credited to it than debited in the period (for example a journal that moved cost out); check it in the General Ledger.

How the figures are worked out

LineHow it's worked out
Revenue, Other incomeCredits less debits on the revenue accounts in the period.
Cost of sales, Operating expenses, Finance costs, Other expenses, Income tax expenseDebits less credits on the expense accounts in the period.
Gross profitTotal revenue less total cost of sales.
Operating profitGross profit less total operating expenses.
Profit before taxOperating profit + other income less finance costs less other expenses.
Profit/(loss) for the periodProfit before tax less income tax expense.
VarianceThis period less the comparison column.
Variance %The variance divided by the comparison figure (ignoring its sign), times 100. Blank when the comparison is nil.

Where a group goes. The Statement Mapping setting decides. Without one, WbizManager reads the group's name and code: "cost of sales", "cost of goods" or a code starting 5 is cost of sales; an account or category named income tax, corporate tax or tax expense is income tax (VAT, withholding and payroll taxes never are); interest and borrowing costs are finance costs; "other income" or code 42 is other income; "non-operating" or code 62 is other expenses; "admin", "selling", "distribution" or code 61 is operating expenses. Anything still unknown goes to Other income (revenue) or Operating expenses (costs), and the warning names it.

Prior period is the period just before (the previous month, quarter or the same length of time). Prior year is the same period one fiscal year earlier.

Good to know

  • The profit for the fiscal year to date is the same figure the Statement of Financial Position shows as Profit/(Loss) for the Period.
  • Income tax is shown below profit before tax only when the account is really income tax. A VAT account wrongly mapped to a tax expense account shows up here, and the Tax Summary points it out.
  • To see the statement split by project or department, use Profit or Loss by Dimension.