Track expenses and overheads

Gross profit tells you whether your dishes are priced correctly. Net profit tells you whether the business works. The difference between them is everything under Expenses, and a shop that never fills this in is reading a number that flatters it every single month.

Add an expense

Under Expenses → Add Expense:

• Amount (₱) and Date.
• Category — rent, utilities, salaries, transport, repairs, licences, marketing. Consistent names matter more than perfect ones; the monthly breakdown is only as useful as your naming.
• Note — the detail your future self will want. "Meralco, July" beats "electricity".
• Recurring Expense — for regular fixed costs, with a Frequency of daily, weekly, monthly or yearly.

Recurring is the setting that makes this sustainable. Enter rent once as monthly and stop thinking about it; enter it manually every month and you will miss one by March.

Operating versus non-operating

Kasenso separates the two, and the distinction is not accounting pedantry.

• Operating expenses are the cost of running the shop: rent, utilities, salaries, transport, supplies.
• Non-operating covers things like interest, which are financing costs rather than trading costs.

Reports show Operating Profit and Net Profit separately as a result. If operating profit is healthy but net profit is not, the shop is working and the debt is the problem — a completely different fix from a shop whose dishes are underpriced.

What to record

Everything that leaves the business and is not stock. Ingredients and packaging come through inventory already; entering them here as well double-counts them and makes your figures worse than having none.

Commonly missed:

• Your own salary. If you work in the shop, the business should be paying for it. A business that only looks profitable because the owner is unpaid is not profitable.
• Delivery rider fees and platform commissions.
• Repairs and maintenance — the freezer, the printer, the fan.
• Licences and permits, spread as a yearly recurring expense.
• Internet and mobile data, if the shop depends on them.

Read it monthly

The Expenses page has This Month, Last Month and All Time views, plus a This Month by Category breakdown. Ten minutes at the start of each month:

1. Compare this month to last, by category.
2. Ask what changed for any category that moved more than about a tenth.
3. Check the total against gross profit in Reports. Gross profit minus expenses is what you actually made.

Expenses also feed the Expenses line in the Manager's Daily Report, so a large one-off on a given day is visible in context rather than as a surprise at month end.

Frequently asked questions

Should I record ingredient purchases as an expense?

No. Ingredients are stock and are already counted through inventory and recipes. Entering them under Expenses as well double-counts them and understates your profit. Expenses is for overheads — rent, utilities, salaries and the like.

What is the difference between operating profit and net profit?

Operating profit is what the shop makes after the costs of running it. Net profit subtracts non-operating costs such as interest as well. A gap between them is financing cost, and it points at a different problem from a thin margin.

How does a recurring expense work?

You enter it once with a frequency — daily, weekly, monthly or yearly — and it is treated as a regular fixed cost from then on, so a monthly rent does not need re-entering every month.

Should I pay myself a salary in the figures?

Yes, if you work in the business. Leaving your own labour out is the most common reason a small shop believes it is profitable when it is only breaking even.

Can my cashier see expenses?

Only if you tick the Expenses page for them under staff permissions. It is an admin page by default, and most shops leave it that way.

Next: read your sales reports.