Spot It.
You know the business made money overall, but you can't say which customers, jobs or products are carrying the load. Some feel profitable but may not be. Others feel like a hassle but might be your best earners. Pricing, sales and marketing decisions end up being made on instinct.
Sight It.
Most small business accounting is set up to show the whole company, not its parts. Labor, materials and overhead aren't tracked to individual jobs or products. Time records may be incomplete or missing. And nobody has had the time to set up a simple way to compare one line of work against another, so the winners and losers blur together.
Solve It.
Start with a simple, good-enough view:
- Choose one way to break down the business: by product line, service type, customer or job.
- For each one, gather revenue and direct costs, such as labor and materials.
- Estimate a fair share of overhead for each.
- Rank them from most to least profitable and look for surprises.
- Ask your bookkeeper to set up tracking so this view is available every month.
You don't need perfect cost accounting to see which work deserves more of your attention.
Fixed it yourself? Great. Want help making it stick? Talk to a Troubleshooter.