How it works
The P&L starts with revenue, subtracts cost of goods sold to show gross profit, then subtracts operating expenses, interest and taxes to reach net income. It covers a period, such as a month or a year, unlike the balance sheet, which is a point in time. Accrual-basis P&Ls show earned revenue and incurred costs, not just cash.
Example
A merchant's monthly P&L shows $210,000 of revenue, $118,000 of cost of goods sold, $54,000 of operating expenses and $38,000 of net income.
In integrations
Lenders and finance tools rely on P&Ls by period. The Unify Accounting API is designed to return profit and loss reports normalized by period where the platform exposes them. With product data on the same model, revenue can be broken down by SKU or channel. Profit and loss reports from different ledgers are not always comparable: account groupings, basis and date ranges vary. When you compare across customers, map accounts to a standard structure first.