Sales profitability analysis · Sales
Your biggest customers may not be your most profitable ones.
Turnover is easy to read. Profit is not. A large dealer who gets the best rate, pays in ninety days and returns stock every season can bring more work and less money than a small one who pays on delivery.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
Sales profitability analysis shows which products, customers, regions and salespeople leave profit after discounts, credit, returns and the cost of serving them. GullySales works from your own accounts, order by order, and gives you a plain-language report on where the money stays and where it leaks.
Your accounting software already holds much of the answer. Tally, Busy or a spreadsheet records the sale, the cost and the credit note. What is missing is a view that joins them by order, so you see margin after the discount your salesperson gave and the days you waited to be paid.
This service reads the past. It tells you what happened and where. Acting on it, through price changes or terms, is the work of sales margin improvement. Reporting revenue and conversion is revenue analytics and intelligence. Enquiries that never reached your team are a lead leakage question.
Who it is for
This is written for you if these sound familiar.
- Distributors and dealers who give different rates and credit to different accounts
- Manufacturers selling several product lines at a price set long ago
- Owners whose turnover has grown while the bank balance has not
- Clinics, schools and shops with several services or branches and one combined profit figure
- Sales heads who pay incentives on sales value and suspect that rewards the wrong orders
Not for
It is not the right fit if.
- A business whose invoices, costs and credit notes are not recorded anywhere. Bookkeeping comes first.
- An owner who wants a net profit statement or tax advice. That is for your own chartered accountant.
- Teams that want the findings turned into a new price list. That is a separate piece of work.
The problem
Does this sound like your business?
Common situations this work addresses.
“Sales are up but there is less cash”
Turnover rises each year, yet the money left at the end does not follow. Discounts, long credit and returns are hidden inside the total.
“My top customer wants another discount”
You cannot say whether that account earns you anything after its terms. Without the number, the conversation is decided by fear of losing the volume.
“Every salesperson says their region is strong”
One territory books more value but sells at deep discounts. Another sells less at better margin. Ranking by sales value rewards the first.
“The product sells well but I am not sure it pays”
A fast-moving item with thin margin and costly handling can use up the profit made elsewhere. The stock report alone does not show it.
What we do
The work we can include.
Each deliverable and the purpose it serves. Your written scope confirms what is included, who is responsible, and what it costs.
Order-level margin workbook
Each invoice joined to its cost from your accounts, with the discount given and the credit note raised against it. Your accountant can trace any row back to the voucher.
Definitions sheet
What counts as cost, how returns and credit notes are treated, and which overheads are shared out and how. You approve it before any ranking is shown.
Product, customer and region views
The same orders cut four ways: by item, by account, by region and by salesperson. Differences in territory size and account mix are stated beside each comparison.
Discount and credit effect statement
For each major account, the margin before and after its discount, and the days of payment credit it takes. Cash tied up in receivables is shown separately from margin.
Cost-to-serve notes
Delivery, returns handling, sample requests, visit frequency and collection effort, taken from your records and your team's account where no record exists. Estimates are labelled as estimates.
Least profitable quarter list
The accounts and items that sit in the bottom quarter of the book, with the reason each one is there. Some turn out to be a data fault, not a real loss.
Plain-language report
A written report for the owner and sales head: what the records show, what they cannot show, and which questions to settle before any decision.
How the result is measured
- Margin by order, product, customer, region and salesperson
- Discount given against list price, by account
- Credit days taken and cash tied up in receivables
- Returns and credit notes as a share of sales, by product and account
- Cost to serve by account, labelled by source
- Orders that could not be reconciled to the books
Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.
Before you decide
Agree the work. Know how to judge it.
Sales profitability analysis: use these checks to prepare, choose the scope, and review what changes.
Bring the right evidence
Bring the current target, pipeline, and review format. Mark which decisions the manager can make and which still require the owner's approval.
Make the scope clear
Agree decision rights and the management routine, including who runs it after the engagement. Separate advice to your sales head from taking responsibility for an agreed part of the operation.
Check the work in use
A useful review ends with an owner and next action for the deals or constraints discussed. Revisit those actions before adding more dashboard measures.
Know when to change course
If a review only collects updates already available in the CRM, shorten it. Use the time to resolve a blocked decision or coach a specific piece of selling work.
These are discussion points, not a fixed package. GullySales confirms the deliverables, responsibilities, fee, and term in writing after reading your brief and speaking with you.
How it works
How the sales profitability analysis work runs
The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.
- 1
Scope the questions and the records
After your requirements brief and a conversation, we agree which decisions the report must serve and which accounts, price lists and exports we need. Scope, fee and term are put in writing.
- 2
Take the export and test it
Your accountant exports sales, purchase cost, credit notes and receipts from your software. We check that totals match your books before analysing anything.
- 3
Agree the definitions
Your sales head and accountant settle cost, returns and shared overhead treatment with us. Disagreements are written down, not averaged away.
- 4
Build the order-level view
We join sale, cost, discount, credit note and payment for each order. Rows that do not reconcile are listed for your accountant, not guessed.
- 5
Add credit and cost to serve
Payment days and service effort are added account by account. We ask the people who handle the account where the records are silent.
- 6
Walk through the report
We take your owner and sales head through the findings, the weak accounts and items, and the doubts. What to do next is your decision, or a separate scope.
Before you hire anyone
Do this first yourself.
Pick your ten largest customers and see what is left of each sale before anyone builds a report.
- Export last year's sales by customer from Tally, Busy or your billing software.
- Add the discount you gave each of the ten, compared with your list price.
- Note how many days each one actually takes to pay, from receipts, not from the agreed terms.
- List the credit notes and returns raised against each account.
- Ask your accountant which costs are in your cost of goods and which are not.
- Rank the ten by what is left after discount and credit notes, then compare with the ranking by sales value.
Judge any provider
What to ask any provider of this service.
Useful whoever you choose, including us.
- Will you reconcile every figure to our books before analysing, and show what does not match?
- How do you treat returns, credit notes and shared overheads, and can we approve that first?
- How will you show the cost of payment credit separately from margin?
- Where cost to serve has no record, how is the estimate made and labelled?
- Who decides what to do with the weakest accounts, and what is outside your scope?
- Will the report say plainly which conclusions rest on weak data?
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales management. A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3 · you are here
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Do we need special software for this?
How is this different from our dashboard?
Will you tell us which customers to drop or reprice?
Is this accounting or tax advice?
What if our cost data is poor?
What will it cost and how long will it take?
How long is the contract?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
By industry
Sales profitability analysis, written for your industry.
Related services
Often bought with this, or instead of it.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.