Profit & Margin

The Profit & Margin report shows you revenue, the cost of what you sold, and your gross profit for any date range. It can break the numbers down by individual product, by category, or by day, week, or month so you can see exactly where your money is (and is not) coming from.

Which report should I use?

Use Profit & Margin for an accurate view of what you made. It uses the cost recorded on each sale at the time it happened, and you can group results by product, category, day, week, or month.

To explore your sales by category with a chart, and to open a category to see the products inside it, use the Sales by Category report. Both reports use the same revenue and cost figures, so the numbers match where they overlap.

Use this report to answer questions like:

• Which products make the most profit?
• Which categories have the best margin?
• Is my overall margin trending up or down over time?
• Are there products I am selling at a loss?

How to run the report

1. Click Reports in the left menu.
2. Click the Profit & Margin card.
3. Set the date range using the From and To fields, or click a preset period such as Last 30 days or This month.
4. Choose how to group the results using the Group by selector: Product, Category, Day, Week, or Month.
5. Click Run Report.

The report does not load automatically when you open the page. You must click Run Report to see results.

What the table shows

Each row in the table represents one product, category, or time period depending on the Group by option you chose. The columns are:

• Name / Category / Period: the product name, category name, or date period for that row.
• Revenue: total money taken in, after discounts and loyalty redemptions.
• Qty: units sold. Mixed units (for example, items sold by weight alongside items sold each) are shown separately.
• COGS: cost of goods sold. This is the total cost of the stock you sold, based on the cost price recorded at the time of each sale.
• Gross Profit: revenue minus COGS. A negative number means that product or period was sold at a loss.
• Margin %: gross profit as a percentage of revenue. The cell is colour-coded: green is 30% or above, amber is 15 to 29%, and red is below 15%.
• Txns: how many separate sales are included in that row.

Summary stats

At the top of the results you will see four summary cards:

• Total Revenue: all revenue across the selected period and filters.
• Total COGS: the total cost of all goods sold.
• Gross Profit: total revenue minus total COGS.
• Margin %: overall gross margin for the period.

Understanding the margin colour coding

The Margin % column uses three colours to help you spot problems at a glance:

• ■ Green (30% or above): healthy margin.
• ■ Amber (15 to 29%): worth watching but not a problem on its own.
• ■ Red (below 15%): low margin. This could mean the product is priced too low, your cost has increased, or it is being sold with heavy discounts.

A red margin is not always bad. Some high-volume, low-margin products are intentional. Use the colour as a prompt to investigate, not as a verdict.

Exporting to Excel

Once you have results, an Export button appears next to Run Report. Click it to download the data as an Excel file. The file has two sheets:

• Profit & Margin: the full detail table with the same rows you see on screen. When grouped by Product, the sheet also includes a Selling Price column showing each product's current list price. This is useful for cross-checking whether your pricing is in line with your cost and margin targets.
• Summary: key totals and report metadata on a single page for easy filing. If your data includes products sold in different units of measure, the summary also lists each unit abbreviation and its full name.

The export runs in the background. If you navigate away before it finishes, you can find and download it from the Exports page in the left menu.

About cost figures and accuracy

ClarityPOS records the cost price of each product at the time of every sale. This means the COGS figures in this report reflect what the product actually cost you when it was sold, not today's cost.

If a product had no cost price set when it was sold, that sale's cost contribution will be zero and its margin will be overstated. When this applies to any row in the results, a yellow notice appears above the table:

Some cost figures may be inaccurate. This happens when a product had no cost price set at the time of sale. Set a cost price on those products so that future sales are recorded accurately.

To get accurate margin figures, make sure every product has a cost price set before it is sold. You can set or update cost prices on the Products page.

FAQ

Q: Why does a product show 0 COGS?

A: The product has no cost price set. Go to Products, open the product, and enter a cost price. Future sales will use this figure.

Q: Why are some products showing a loss (negative margin)?

A: A negative margin means the recorded cost price is higher than the selling price. This can happen if cost prices were entered incorrectly, if a sale was made at a discounted price below cost, or if the weighted average cost increased after a purchase order was received.

Q: Why does the margin % show N/A for some rows?

A: N/A appears when a row has zero revenue. This can happen if all sales in that group were fully discounted or if the row only contains returned items.

Q: How is revenue calculated?

A: Revenue is the total of all line totals, minus each line's proportional share of any sale-level discount and loyalty points redemptions. This matches the revenue figure shown in the Sales by Category report.

Q: What does COGS stand for?

A: Cost of Goods Sold. It is the total cost of all the stock you sold in that period, calculated as: quantity sold multiplied by the cost price at the time of each sale.

Q: How is gross margin calculated?

A: Gross margin (also called gross profit) is Revenue minus COGS. Margin % is then Gross Profit divided by Revenue, multiplied by 100.

Q: Can I filter by cashier?

A: Yes. The API supports a cashier filter. This is not exposed in the on-screen interface but is available when using the export job directly.

Q: The margin figures look different from what I expected after a recent price change.

A: ClarityPOS records the cost price at the time of each sale. If you recently changed a product's cost price, older sales still reflect the cost that was in effect when those sales happened. Only sales made after the change will use the new cost price.