Every established company has a profit and loss spreadsheet (P&L) because it’s one of the most important (if not THE most important) financial statements. Why? It gives you an overview of all the revenues and expenses that your business incurs over time. It also tells you for each dollar of revenue, how much is left after expenses. You need to be tracking your finances to be sure you’re turning profits and to plan your business strategy!

I know, I know. You’re a creative and this finance business lingo may be making you cringe. It used to make me cringe. Really. Tracking all my finances felt incredibly tedious and confusing. So my finance guy Andres made this EXACT template for me and my business (along with this break even calculator) and now I love being able to see—WITH TANGIBLE DATA—how my business is doing. I’m no longer guessing, “I THINK overall I’m making money this year???…” 

This P&L spreadsheet template requires some basic entry of expense and revenue numbers and then you sit back and watch the magic happen while the formulas auto-populate the tables and charts! It’s seriously so fun.

And if you’re asking, “What if I already have an accounting software such as Quickbooks?”. I have Quickbooks, too, and it may be enough for some but here’s what I learned: The Quickbooks P&L shows a very holistic view of the business. But what if you want to do a P&L for a single line of products so that you can compare the profitability of each line? This P&L will allow you to do that. This P&L also allows you to do projections—you can simulate where you will end up financially if you plug in numbers in months that have not happened yet.

So, if you’re ready to: