Revenue and Expense Analysis of a Business Account

Haleema Qayyum

By

Haleema Qayyum

Revenue and Expense Analysis of a Business Account

Table of Contents

Companies can have various types of expenses. Therefore, they have to make proper budget planning and expense analysis for incomes and revenues. In addition, they have to do planning for the expected future expenses.

The expense analysis dashboard can help you maintain a record of monthly expenses and actual cost targets. Furthermore, due to the help of the analysis dashboard, companies can analyze the percentage of target realization in Excel.

Feature Image Expense Analysis

Sections of Expense Analysis Template

Generally, a template of expense analysis consists of 3 main sections, which are:

  • Dashboard
  • Section of Estimated Expense
  • Actual Expense section

Dashboard

In this section of the expense analysis dashboard, there are various reports from which you can select the required category, sub-category, and month.

So, you can easily select the ones you need to put your actual expenses and monthly estimates from the options. You can see the dashboard to analyze the trend between the actual cost and estimated expense.

Furthermore, the expense analysis template dashboard allows the users to define a specific category and check its sub-details. For example, once you select the initial month, the dashboard automatically select the following months until the one-year period completes.

Estimated Expense

In this section of the expense analysis template, you can record and maintain the data of cost that your business might achieve beforehand. Then, after putting the estimated expense of your company and assigning the category for each, you can put the monthly cost assumptions of the various items.

Actual Expense

You put the actual cost and amount that your company pays or spends on a specific category in the actual expense section. It is highly essential to input the actual and accurate information to check the overview and analyze the actual expense of your business. This template section is printable, and you can use them in various reports and presentations.

Related Article: 10+ Free Non Profit Financial Statement Templates in Excel

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Features of Expense Analysis Dashboard

  • Reporting tool of expense in Excel
  • Print-Ready
  • Dashboard view with various reporting options
  • Clear instructions on the sheet
  • Contains pivot tables for entering the details of the expense category
  • Compatible with the 2007 Excel version and later versions.
  • Includes VBA macros that you need to enable before using
Expense Analysis Dashboard Features

How to Conduct a Revenue & Expense Account Analysis?

Number crunching is not favorable for many small businesses and company owners. Only those owners who are accountants will endorse these options. There should be a tool for reviewing the financial statements of each department and analyzing the ratios, variances, and percentages.

The tools can help you improve the bottom line and earn more income. Therefore, it is important to conduct a revenue and expense analysis of your company’s accounts. Let’s know how to conduct an expense analysis of a company?

Related Article: The Best Free Financial Planning Excel Sheets

Write down Sales and Revenues

First of all, write down the details of all sales and revenues of the timer period you will analyze. Revenues can be from an ordinary cause of the company.

In addition, they do not contain any selling proceeds such as equipment, building, intellectual property, or customer list. They are also individual from other products’ accounts to determine each product’s actual percentage of sales.

Add all Costs

Now add all the costs that each product for sale is creating. It is the cost of items or goods sold. For instance, you would include the cost of labor and raw material to produce a widget, but you would not include the administrative salaries, advertising costs, and commissions on sales.

In addition, you can compare each account present within the expenses as a percentage of the total cost of goods sold. From this comparison, you can determine how products vary from ales point.

However, if there are several products, you need to do calculations of each account to determine the cost of each product sold.

Calculate the Gross Margin

To calculate the dollar figure of gross margin, you need to subtract the actual cost of goods sold from the costs generated by the revenues. Now divide the gross margin value by the value of total revenues and get a percentage figure.

The value of gross margins tells what amount of dollars the sales and the profits are generating. The increase in the value of gross margins indicates high profitability. You can also compare gross margins across periods month by month or from year to year.

If the price of the product has changed, make sure to determine whether gross margins are also changed or whether total expenses are changed or not. If your total expense is decreasing, productivity is increasing, so the gross margins are also increasing.

Make sure to add the marketing cost together, including sales and marketing wages, advertising, commissions, website expense, and draws. Then, calculate the total cost as sales percentage.

Also, compare the percentage of sales across various periods. If you want to increase sales, you have to increase sales through advertising.

In addition, if you want to calculate the cost of each product required for marketing, you need to divide the total marketing cost by the units of product sold. You can also consider each account of marketing expense as a percentage of total revenue and expense.

For instance, businesses that rely on general advertisement to create their sales consider advertisement just a percentage of sales.

Calculate the Administrative Cost

For calculating the estimate of administrative cost, you need to add all expenses, including benefits, administrative salaries, and the general expenses of the office such as insurance, rent, travel, and postage.

Here, you do not need to add amortization, depreciation, and interest. Also, these expenses can be analyzed as a sales percentage.

Related Article: Download Free Cash flow Templates Xls

Calculate the Gross Profit

To calculate the gross income or gross profit, subtract the cost of marketing expenses, goods sold, amortization, depreciation, interest, and administrative expenses from revenues. Then, divide the gross profit by the total revenues to compare the expense year over year. The increase in the percentage shows that your business is progressing.

Add any losses or gains to gross income from the sale of assets. Check the asset book value and subtract it from the sale price. If the number is positive, it shows the gain, and if the number is negative, it shows a loss.

It is also known as gross income adjusted for loss or gain on assets. Calculate the texts and subtract them from gross profit to estimate net income. It is also expressed as revenue percentage.

Add non-cash expenses such as amortization and depreciation into the net income to check the cash position. A company may be in a cash-deficient state and end up with a profit.

Calculate the Variance

To calculate the variance, compare each company account with the last year and determine the variance.

Business Expense Analysis: Variable vs. Fixed Expenses

It is always a good feeling to know that a company’s operating expenses behave relative to the total sales activity. But it is not simple to separate variable expenses from fixed operating expenses.

The main reason to separate them is that most projects have both variable cost components and fixed cost components. A classic example, “telephone and telegraph,” was considered in the old day.

Companies have to pay a fixed cost for local costs per month, but the long-distance and international calls charges depend on the number of calls made and where they were made.

However, the means of communication such as the internet and cell phones are flat-fee. So, in any case, accounting can separate the variable cost components from foxed cost components for reporting purposes.

Variable expenses

Variable expenses are generally present in every business that can be moved up and down due to the changes in the sales revenue and sales volume. Therefore, reducing these expenses from a company means more money in the company’s account every time a sale is made.

Some common examples of variable expenses are:

  • The cost of items sold to the customers
  • The commission offered to salespeople based on their sales
  • Franchise fees that are based on total sales and are paid to the franchisor
  • Cost of transportation that requires for delivering the goods to the customers via UPS, FedEx, and freight haulers (trucking companies and railroads)
  • A cost that retailer pays when a client uses a debit card or credit card

The businesses and companies that sell products usually have the largest variable expense in terms of the cost of items sold. Other variable expenses can be operating expenses that are the expenses of making products, sales, and running the company. The size of these variables varies from business to business.

Fixed expenses

These expenses are fixed costs that a company is responsible for paying regardless of declining sales levels. For example, a typical car wash self-service can be an example of a fixed expense. You go to the car washer, enter the coins, and use the sprayers to clean your vehicle.

Furthermore, almost all the operational costs of a car wash company are fixed, such as rent on the place, depreciation of the equipment and structure, and the annual insurance premium.

These variables do not rely on the number of cars entering the car wash. So, here the main variable exposes are soap, water, and electricity. Thus, we can say that foxed expenses are the cost that any company pays to do business. Some other examples of fixed expenses are:

  • Electricity and gas costs to cool, heat, and light the buildings
  • Real estate taxes on property
  • Salaries and benefits of staff
  • Annual audit fee
  • General liability and
  • Directors’ and officers’ insurance premiums
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Top 3 Frequently Asked Questions


What is included in the operating expenses?


Operating expenses include the cost that a company pays for normal businesses operations. These expenses mostly include equipment, rent, marketing, inventory, payroll, step costs, insurance, and funds allocated for research and development. Operating expenses are also known as OPEX.


What is a good operating expense ratio?


If we talk about a normal operating expense ratio, it typically ranges between 60 to 80 %. The lower the percentage means that your company is doing better. For example, if your operating expense ratio is below 70%, it means that your company is doping great for controlling the expenses.


How do you do an expense analysis?


To do an expense analysis, you have to create an expense sheet. The steps to create a sheet are:

• Choose an expense-tracking software or excel template.
• Edit the categories and columns (such as mileage or rent) as needed.
• Add expenses of each item with costs.
• Add up the total.
• Attach your matching receipts.
• Email or print the report.

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