Reporting & Analysis

The Dashboard page provides a high-level overview of your business performance and is highly customizable: choose which metrics matter most for your business, which timeframes appear as defaults on each widget, and where widgets sit on the page.

The Dashboard has up to three sections:

1. P&L Summary — displays Total Revenue, Gross Profit, Operating Expenses, Net Income, plus optional category trend widgets you turn on from the same Edit screen. This is particularly useful for keeping track of specific metrics that are important to your business.
2. Platform Analytics — designed specifically for ecommerce platforms, this section shows platform-specific metrics, allowing you to track performance within and across different payment platforms.
3. P&L Analytics — includes customizable revenue, expense, merchants, and trends analysis, providing detailed insights into your business operations.

The following actions allow you personalize the Dashboard to your business:

• Click the Edit button in each section to choose which metrics appear
• Reposition widgets by dragging and dropping using the 6 dots in each widget
• Use the timeframe dropdown in each widget to choose your preferred timeframe (Monthly, Quarterly, or Annual)

The P&L page shows your business operating performance in financial terms.

Outline below are the key metrics you will see:

• Revenue — total sales of your business, minus refunds
• COGS — total direct costs of delivering the work or product (e.g. materials, labor, shipping, etc.)
• Gross Profit — money that is left after direct costs of delivering the work or product (Revenue minus COGS)
• Operating Expenses — day-to-day operational costs (e.g. marketing, software, labor, admin)
• Operating Income — Gross Profit minus day-to-day operational costs (e.g. marketing, software, labor, admin)
• Non-Operating lines — other income and expenses that are not part of operating your business (e.g. Interest Expense/Income, Taxes)
• Net Income — Operating Income after non-operating items like interest and taxes
• Margins — Gross Margin, Operating Margin, and Net Income Margin are frequently used financial metrics to evaluate the health and profitability of your business. They are calculated as a percentage of Revenue, e.g. Gross Margin = Gross Profit / Revenue. Margins differ significantly by industry and business model, but are a good point of reference when trying to optimize your profitability and using trends to guide your business decisions.

Excluded from P&L lines (Transfers, Credit Card Payments, Sales Tax Collected) are intentionally not included on your P&L since these transactions are not part of your operating income or expenses.

On the P&L page, use the View dropdown to choose monthly, quarterly, or annual slices, and use Compare To to pick your benchmark.

BudgetBadger provides the following report periods for your P&L:

• Monthly — one calendar month
• Quarterly — a full calendar quarter (for example Apr–Jun for Q2)
• Annual — a full calendar year for prior periods or YTD (year-to-date) for the current year

For the current period, Annual YTD is defined as the period that runs from January through the last fully completed calendar month (not the in-progress month). Excluding the unfinished month keeps comparisons fair when you stack YTD against budget or a prior year.

Use the Compare To control to pick the benchmark for the Status / variance columns:

• Prior Month, Prior Quarter, Prior Year — the same calendar period immediately before, or one year earlier for Prior Year
• Budget — your category targets from the Budget page (only when Budgeting is enabled in Settings)

Prior Year means the same calendar period one year earlier (for example Jun 2026 vs Jun 2025, or 2026 YTD vs 2025 YTD through the same completed months). The Highest Increases vs. Prior Year and Highest Reductions vs. Prior Year widgets on the Dashboard page use the same Prior Year definition.

In practice, you can use these comparisons to understand your recent business performance:

• Trends — Compare to Prior Month/Quarter/Year to see which financial metrics and categories are improving or slipping. Use the green / yellow / red progress bars in the Status column for a fast read against your chosen benchmark.
• Plan vs actual — Compare current period results to Budget, so you can see which lines are ahead or behind plan and help you identify areas for improvement.

The Balance Sheet is an as-of snapshot of what your business owns and owes, not a summary of business performance over a specified period like the P&L.Amounts are labeled "As of" a specific date for the month you select in the Period dropdown.

Below are the main line items and what they mean:

Assets

• Cash — checking and savings balances from linked BudgetBadger accounts
• Investments — investment, brokerage, and crypto account balances from linked BudgetBadger accounts
• Custom asset lines — named rows you manually add and want to break out as a specific line (e.g. owned property or vehicle)
• Other Assets — manual catch-all for assets that are not synced or captured elsewhere (e.g. inventory, equipment, etc.)

Liabilities

• Credit Cards — linked BudgetBadger credit card balances
• Loans — linked BudgetBadger loan balances
• Custom liability lines — named rows you manually add and want to break out as a specific line (e.g. a specific non-synced loan)
• Other Liabilities — manual catch-all for liabilities that are not synced or captured elsewhere (e.g. accounts payable, notes payable, etc.)

Equity

• Custom equity lines — manually added equity rows you want labeled separately (e.g. preferred stock, founders' equity, etc.)
• Owner’s Equity — the balancing plug that makes the statement balance. It is calculated as **Total Assets − Total Liabilities − other Equity lines. This represents the residual ownership interest in the business after all assets, liabilities, and other equity lines are accounted for.

By construction, Total Assets equals Total Liabilities & Equity for the as-of date.

Since the BudgetBadger Balance Sheet uses cash-based accounting, the only values that are automatically populated are the synced account rollups from the Accounts page. You can then manually enter balances for Other Assets, Other Liabilities, and create your own custom lines using the Add Line button to build a Balance Sheet that best reflects a snapshot of your business.

BudgetBadger stores daily account balance snapshots from the Accounts page and uses them to populate the Synced Balance Sheet lines: Cash, Investments, Credit Cards, and Loans.

See below for what you can and cannot edit:

• Cash, Investments, Credit Cards, Loans — not editable. Click the amount for a breakdown by account.
• Other Assets and Other Liabilities — editable. Enter a balance as of the selected period.
• Custom asset, liability, or equity lines — editable amounts. Click the row name to rename or remove the line.
• Owner’s Equity and Totals lines — not editable. These are calculation rows and are computed automatically.

For editable lines, the amount you enter for a specific period will carry forward to later months until you change it for a later period. Earlier months keep their own saved values.

Below are instructions for creating your own custom Balance Sheet lines:

1. Click Add Line in the top right of the page.
2. Choose Type (Asset, Liability, or Equity), enter a Name, and press Save.
3. Set the Balance by using the Period dropdown to select the month and click the value on that row to edit it.

Practical tips for managing your Balance Sheet:

• Keep banks and cards connected and syncing in BudgetBadger so Cash and Credit Card balances stay current.
• Use custom lines sparingly so month-to-month comparisons stay easy to read.
• Put non-synced items (e.g. inventory) in Other Assets/Liabilities or custom lines.
• Spot-check that Total Assets still equals Total Liabilities & Equity after edits.
• Use the Export button on the page to download as an Excel or PDF file when you need a CPA-ready copy of the report.

See How to Read Your Balance Sheet for what each line means.

There are two ways to export P&L and Balance Sheet reports from the BudgetBadger system:

1. Use the Export button on the P&L or Balance Sheet page to download in XLSX or PDF format.
2. In Settings → Email Settings, use the Send P&L button to email a Business P&L for a selected view and period to a specific email address.

For a step-by-step year-end package for your CPA (full-year P&L and December Balance Sheet), see Year-End Reports for Your Tax Preparer.