Fill in your last month’s numbers to instantly see your key margins, benchmark against industry standards, and identify where profit is leaking.
This worksheet takes 10 minutes to complete. You’ll need your most recent Profit & Loss Statement. Fill in the yellow fields, calculate the results, and compare to the benchmarks at the bottom. If you don’t have a P&L, that’s the first thing to fix.
Step 1 — Enter Your Numbers
Step 2 — Compare to Benchmarks (Service Business)
| Metric | Healthy | Needs Attention | Critical |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gross Profit Margin | 50%+ | 35–49% | Below 35% |
| Net Profit Margin | 15%+ | 5–14% | Below 5% |
| Payroll as % of Revenue | Below 40% | 40–55% | Above 55% |
| Overhead Ratio | Below 30% | 30–45% | Above 45% |
| Gross–Net Margin Gap | Below 35% | 35–50% | Above 50% |
Step 3 — Read Your Diagnosis
Your business is healthy and profitable. Focus on protecting these margins as you grow — they tend to compress with scale if overhead isn’t managed carefully. The next step is building a forward-looking financial model so you can grow intentionally.
Your business is functional but leaving profit on the table. The gap between your gross margin and net margin is worth investigating — overhead is consuming a significant portion of your gross profit. Prioritize: review each overhead category for waste, check whether pricing reflects your true cost of service, and model what a 5% margin improvement would mean in dollars.
This needs immediate attention. A sub-5% net margin means almost all your revenue is being consumed by costs, and one bad month can tip you into loss. If gross margin is below 35%, the problem is structural: your pricing is too low relative to your cost of delivery, or your delivery costs are too high. This is not a bookkeeping problem — it’s a business model problem that requires strategic intervention.
We do this for every new client in our onboarding financial health check. Book a free strategy call and we’ll tell you exactly where your margins stand — and what to do about it.
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