how to make a profit and loss report?

[Slater]

Hi All,

I'm trying to sort out a profit and loss report, and i was thinking it should be with sub-summaries, but i can't see how to make them only show / take into account certain records.

Perhaps an explanation:

I have a Database of jobs / costs. I can get a basic p&l report done ok, using a calculation field and summary field method, along these lines:

Sales = If (Type = "Sale"; Amount ; "")

Total_Sales = Total of Sales (this is a summary field)

Doing this for Sales, Cost of Sales, Operating costs etc gives me the totals, and i can tott them up to make a nice basic profit and loss.

(ie

"sales" = Total_Sales

"cost of sales" = Total_cost of sales

"gross profit" = Total_Sales - Total_cost of sales

"operating costs" = Total_Operating Costs

"nett profit" = Gross profit - Total_Operating Costs)

The problem with this is that i have 8 major groupings of Operating Costs, all of which i'd like to summarise. Each one of these groupings has at least 4 or 5 sub groupings, which would be good to view as well. It's obvious that i have to do this another way ... which is why i was thinking sub-summary, but i can't figure out how.

Could someone point me in the right direction?

Many thanks,

Slater

[Inky Phil]

I might well use calc fields with extensive use of the case function to get so many variations

Phil

[Slater]

Thanks Phil, i've made it just a little bit more complex than the base report, and i think i'll leave it at that because i've got a nice report that will tell me what's going on at a finer level if something stands out.

Cheers