Creating Your Own Profit & Loss Statement

July 17, 2019
Shari Steinbach
Business Skills

By Shari Steinbach, MS RDN, RDBA Contributing Editor

One of the biggest challenges for a retail dietitian is to successfully communicate how their role has a positive impact on the business. Although this may be difficult it is not impossible - if you understand your corporate retail goals and what metrics you should track to show alignment and value. For this reason, a personal profit and loss statement (P&L) can be used to account for how your individual efforts contribute to the department and your company during a certain period of time. Often referred to as a “financial report”, these statements convey the current financial impact of your work and can also help predict the future.

Preparing your own quarterly profit and loss statement:

The preparation process and information needed is the same whether you are preparing a statement for a new position or for analyzing your finances on an ongoing basis. For each row, you will have a quarterly amount then a total for the year.

1. First, show your net income for each quarter of the year. It will be important to break this down into sub-sections to show your income from different sources. For example: vendor income, personal consultations, store tours, business seminars, employee health programs, classes and screenings. Include an income area showing how you have contributed to incremental sales lift from demos, store events or educational selling though social engagement. If you are unsure of how to capture these numbers work with your supervisor, store operations or others to develop a consistent system. 
2. Include a row showing how your efforts have helped to decrease expenses for the company. This may include better employee health outcomes, the value of free media segments, or food safety initiatives that have reduced shrink. 
3. Then, itemize your business expenses for each quarter. These expenses should include wages, benefits, continuing education, dues and subscriptions, media/event supplies, travel, technology (computers, phones) and other.
4. Subtract your expenses from your income plus the amounts you have saved the company by decreasing expenses. The number you have now is net earnings, or your personal profit - or loss.

Share this information with your supervisor during performance reviews and use it as a basis to assess the value of your work. Determine if there are programs or services that should be eliminated or expanded and if there is an opportunity for new services that will bring value to your department and company in the future.