While they may sound similar, they measure your business’s potential in different ways, and it’s crucial that you know how to calculate and interpret each. That refund would constitute a return, and that amount would be deducted from gross sales when calculating net sales. In this formula, net sales equals your gross sales minus returns minus the cost of goods sold. However, this is generally more confusing, so net sales are typically the only value presented. Gross sales are calculated by adding all sales receipts before discounts, returns, and allowances together.

This forces your reps to focus on high-budget and high-quality deals in tandem, motivating them to prioritize big business and high-value business equally. While it can be tempting to rely on gross sales as a measure of performance (as it’s always going to be equal to or higher than the net sales), it can be misleading.

What’s the difference between gross sales vs. net sales?

However, your sales allowances and deductions should not include cost of goods sold, which is subtracted separately from your net sales total. Net Sales is the sales or revenue that your business has earned after all sales adjustments have been taken. Net sales is reported on your income statement, and should always be calculated for any business that sells products. Sales analysts get significant insight from the difference between gross and net sales.

This gives your business a healthy cash flow, but if the discount is too high or if too many customers are using it, it can affect your final sales figure. If your gross sales are high but net sales indicate that one of your products is being returned more than usual, you can use this information to identify what’s wrong.

Gross sales formula:

Thus, if sales are to be reported separately from the income statement, the amount should be reported as net sales. Gross sales and net sales will feature in your financial statements, specifically as the top line on the company’s income statement . To calculate your gross sales, simply multiply the number of units you’ve sold by the unit price. So, if you sold 200 units in Q1 and the unit price is $40, your gross sales revenue is $8,000 for that quarter.

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• For example, if your net sales figures are considerably lower than your competitors, there’s cause for investigation.
• The calculation of net sales gives you a better idea of how much money you’re actually making from your sales.
• The bottom line refers to a company’s earnings, profit, net income, or earnings per share .
• A business might start by declaring its gross sales , then listing the different sales deductions made as line items .
• In the month of May, your business sold $62,000 worth of products on credit.

Pipedrive’s Gross Sales vs Net Sales management software allows sales teams to track revenue, sales and invoices – all from one location. If you find your business offering allowances on a regular basis, something needs to change. Continually offering allowances not only impacts your revenue, but it can make it harder to accurately forecast your future sales.

Why it’s important?

https://www.bookstime.com/ sales are the total revenue a company makes from selling items during a period. Gross sales are calculated by taking total sales and subtracting the cost of the goods. An item that costs $3 and sells for $10 would have a $7 gross profit.

Gross revenue is often used to determine your ability to generate sales from your core business and see if you have a product-market fit. Higher gross revenue signals that consumers are interested in and willing to buy your product .

Calculating your gross sales vs. net sales

This is because these types of activities are expected to generate more sales, regardless of the resulting net sales. When charted over time, gross and net sales help identify if there are issues in the quality of a product and if the customer base is responding to it adversely. For example, if gross sales are high, but net sales are low and it is primarily due to returns then it helps analysts identify a need to increase product quality.

• When you can show an increasing trend in gross revenue, that’s a good sign to investors that you’ve found product-market fit.
• Gross sales are calculated by taking total sales and subtracting the cost of the goods.
• Gross sales can be an important tool, specifically for stores that sell retail items, but it is not the final word in a company’s revenue.
• While interest payments are another item that you’ll deduct from your gross revenue to calculate your net revenue, dividend payments usually are not.
• Unless you offer tremendously specified goods or services, it’s always a balancing act.
• As a sales manager, you can create a plan around working with other teams to address customer concerns and discuss ways to add value to increase profits.