Accounts Profit & Loss - Advanced Formating

Jennifer Kelly

Updated September 01, 2026 02:05

A Profit & Loss Report is special kind of report because the group totals in the report differ depending on the report type. This gives your business reporting flexibility to present the P&L in quite different styles and formats. Use these links to the various format type Simple , Classic , EBITDA

Most often asked FAQ

I am using P&L reports and the output is multiplying. Why?

The Profit and Loss report contains multiple report formats and these are packed into the a dimension P&L Format. When using P&L report you must set a filter for P&L Format so the report runs the correct format.

Typically for simple list or chart you should set the filter P&L Format = Simple

If using any other P&L Format you must also set a Group By to P&L Format.

To learn more about the many formats of GL Report see GL Report Models and Metrics

BI4Cloud allows users to produce a variety of different P&L reports out of the box and the ability to further customise these as needed.

When building a P&L report let's break it down into the component parts. Following are some of the options to consider:

Subtotals or Format - include subtotals for Gross Profit, Operating Profit, EBITDA etc
Rows - by account, summarised into higher level account groups
Columns - Actuals v Budget, Date Comparisons (This year v Prior Year), Months, Divisions
Date Ranges - Month to date, Year to date, Multiple Years

P&L Format

Simple Format

The Simple format produces a basic P&L:

No Sub-totals for Gross Profit or Operating Profit only a Simple grand total for Net Profit
Sub-totals are a Simple sum of Income, Cost of Goods Sold and Expenses
Income displays as Positive and Expenses all display as Negative numbers

As the Simple format does not include any fancy sub-totals it is highly recommend using Simple Format for internal P&L analysis as it allows for more flexibility in producing simple ad-hoc reports and manipulating the data.

Simple is also the best Format to use for drill down to see underlying transactions.

Use Simple Format as a basis to report on only segments of the P&L e.g. just looking at Travel Expenses or anything that is not in "Traditional" P&L.

When using P&L format you are free to set any fields to Group by. The Default Simple P&L is setup to Group by Account Type which will result in a Simple sum of Income, Cost of Goods Sold, Expenses and Grand Total (named Net Profit).

NOTE: If converting one of the other more advanced P&L formats below (Classic/EBITDA/Divisional etc) to Simple format you must also remove the Group by P&L Format Totals as this directive ONLY works with the more advanced P&L formats (Classic/EBITDA etc).

Classic Format

Best format for a traditional or "Classic" P&L.

Income and Expenses all display as Positive numbers so good to use for month-end presentations.
Sub-totals for Gross Profit | Operating Profit | Net Profit

NOTE: The Group by field MUST be set to include P&L Format Totals - this is what tells the report to add these extra Sub-totals when you select Classic Format.

The Classic Format does a number of back-end calculations to calculate the extra sub-totals for Gross Profit, Operating Profit and Net Profit. As such the Classic Format should only be used when producing a traditional/full P&L. Otherwise use the Simple format, see above.

EBITDA

Sub-totals for Gross Profit | EBITDA| EBIT| Net Profit before Tax | Net Profit/Loss
Income and Expenses all display as Positive numbers so good to use for month-end presentations
Depreciation, amortisation and interest accounts are detected using the Report Codes assigned to each GL account.
Use Report Codes to edit how accounts are allocated if the defaults do not reflect your account setup.

NOTE: The Group by field MUST be set to include P&L Format Totals - this is what tells the report to add these extra Sub-totals when you select EBITDA Format.

Report Codes

Use Report Codes to edit how accounts are allocated if the defaults do not reflect your account setup.

GL accounts are automatically assigned to Report Codes (RC) which allows our reports to determine which accounts are Depreciation, Amortisation, interest or Tax etc

To manually edit the RC allocations in each company file: