The cost center report: revenue, expenses, profit and collected

Open Reports then Cost Center Report (or its button on the Cost Centers page). It shows one line per center for the period.

Filters

• From Date and To Date.
• Cost center — all centers, one center, or the unallocated lines alone.
• Branch — a center counts under its own branch; a center with no branch, and unallocated lines, count under their entry's branch. Lines with no branch at all are left out under a branch filter, so the totals can then be lower than the income statement.

Columns

• Revenue (accrued) — what was contracted or invoiced in the period (accrual basis), as in the income statement, without VAT. Returns and credit notes are deducted.
• Expenses — every expense charged to the center, including cost of goods sold, depreciation, salaries and interest.
• Profit — revenue minus expenses.
• Collected (incl. VAT) — what customers actually paid in the period, on the payment date rather than the invoice date, counted on the center the document's revenue was posted on. Bounced cheques and refundable deposits are not included, and refunds are deducted on the day they are paid back (except POS return refunds for now). It covers every activity that has centers. For car dealers it includes what the finance company pays out, and a bounced instalment cheque does not count. On farms it includes cash sales of birds and livestock; a sale on account does not show when it is collected later with a receipt voucher. A payment on a document with no center is not shown, not even under Unallocated.

The last line, Unallocated, holds revenue and expenses with no center chosen. The report's revenue and expenses add up to the income statement for the same period.

From totals to details

Click any center's name to open Cost Center Entries: every revenue or expense line on it in the period, with its date, entry number, account and description, and from there to the entry and its document.

Printing and exporting

Print prints the report with the same filters, and Export Excel (CSV) downloads it as a file that opens in Excel.

Why does profit differ from collected?

Because the first is on an accrual basis and the second on a cash basis: an invoice issued in March and paid in April shows in March's revenue and April's collected. Collected includes VAT because it is part of what the customer paid; revenue does not.