How to Calculate Net Sales?

The profit and loss statement of your business measures net sales and expenses during a specific accounting period, and measures the net profit of your business. The net profit is the difference between your sources of revenue and expenses related to such revenue.

Your income statement showcases the financial progress of your business during a specific period, while the profit and loss statement consists of the unchanging sales and expenses categories. These categories include net sales, cost of goods sold, gross margin, selling and administrative expenses, and net profit.

In this article, you will learn:

What are Net Sales?

Net sales refers to your company’s total sales during an accounting period less any allowances, sales returns, and trade discounts. Net sales are primarily indicated in the income statement of your business. This financial metric is used to analyse your business’s revenue, growth, and operational expenses.

Now, let’s consider the sales return component of the net sales. Different types of businesses allow for varying amounts for sales return. For instance, a manufacturing unit would have more sales return relative to a small retail store.

Then, consider the trade discounts. The amount allowed for trade discounts indicates the disparity between the standard price and the actual price that consumers pay you. Remember, the trade discount allowance reduces your total sales to represent the actual price that your consumers pay.

In addition to this, the manner and the time at which sales are recorded depends on your accounting and bookkeeping system.

How to Calculate Net Sales?

The net sales of your business are typically reported in the income statement. Your income statement showcases the total expenses of your business in the form of three different categories, including direct expenses, indirect expenses, and capital expenses.

Your net sales are represented in the section of the income statement where all the direct expenses are indicated. Individual businesses may not have to necessarily represent net sales in its income statement. This is because the components to calculate net sales do not apply to every business or industry.

So, net sales is calculated by subtracting the following components from the gross revenue of your business:

Sales Return Allowances or Discounts

Sales returns are the product items that buyers return to you, for various reasons, as a seller to take a full refund of such goods.

These reasons can include defective goods, excess quantity shipped, wrong items shipped, incorrect product specifications, etc.

These goods must be returned within a few days immediately after they are sold, and are either recorded as sales return or are directly deducted from sales revenue.

The following two accounts get impacted, an increase in sales and allowances account and a decrease in cash or accounts receivable. In other words, your sales return account gets debited and the cash or accounts receivable account gets credited.

Allowances

Allowances are the grants you give to your customers when they agree to keep the merchandise at a price lower than the original selling price. You as a seller have to provide such grants on account of the inferior quality, or wrong goods sent to the customers.

You record sales allowance as a deduction from gross sales, meaning the sales return and allowances account gets debited and an asset account gets credited. This results in a reduction in your gross revenue.

You must note that sales allowance is created once you bill your consumers, but before the customer pays the amount to you as a seller.

However, sales allowances are different from write-offs, which is recorded before you sell the goods to customers and is an expense that lowers your asset value on account of any losses or damages to the asset.

Discounts

As a seller, you may offer discounts to your customers in cases where you invoice them, which can be done to encourage your customers to make payments early. Different businesses work on different discount terms with their customers.

For instance, you may work on a discount term of 2/15 net 30. This discount term means that you offer a 2% discount to your customers, but only if they make payment within 15 days of a 30 day invoice period.

Remember, you do not account for discounts as a seller unless your customer makes early payments. Usually, you as a seller offer a sales discount when you are in need of cash or you want to reduce your accounts receivable for other reasons. This means the discount would reduce your gross revenue and credit the assets account.

Let's look at an example. The following table showcases the gross sales and other details, like allowances and discounts, of Schwarz Enterprises:

Net Sales = Gross Sales – Sales Return – Sales Allowances – Discount

= $3,000,000 – $25,000 – $10,000 – $20,000

= 2,945,000

Gross Sales Vs Net Sales

How to Calculate Net Sales Revenue?

Your business revenues indicate the total amount that your customers pay for selling goods and services to them. However, there may be times that your customers doesn't make the full payment against the invoices sent across to them.

This means your total business revenues may reduce due to returns, discounts, and allowances, so you need to adjust such items to compute net sales for your business.

To calculate the net sales, follow the steps below:

Examine Net Sales Formula

As net sales are the gross sales minus sales returns, allowances, and discounts, this figure is important for various stakeholders, such as investors and owners.

Net sales showcase the amount of revenue your business generates, which is typically generated when you sell your products or services.

However, you can also generate revenue from other activities, like the sale of plant machinery, etc.

Use the Accrual Method of Accounting

You need to use an accrual method of accounting while recording sales in your books of accounts. This is because the accrual method of accounting recognises revenue when it is earned and expenses when they are incurred, and matches revenues with expenses during specific accounting periods.

This method of accounting gives a better picture of your business earnings relative to the cash method of accounting. The cash method of accounting recognises revenues when cash is received and expenses when cash is paid.

By using the accrual method of accounting you can recognise revenue from sales the moment you send invoices to your customers. You do not have to wait for the cash payment to recognise sales in your books of accounts.

Calculate Gross Sales

Gross sales are the total goods and services sold to your customers during a specific period of time. Per the accrual system of accounting gross sales are the total dollar amount of invoices you send to your customers to request payment.

Deduct Sales Return, Discounts, and Allowances

Sales returns are goods that your customers return due to poor quality or damage, so you need to subtract sales returns from gross sales. The accounting effect of this would be an increase in the sales returns account and a decrease in the accounts receivable account.

Next, you need to deduct any sales allowance, which are the grants you provide to your customers, from gross sales. This may be due to incorrect pricing or an error in the number of goods shipped. Finally, you need to deduct a sales discount if you are offering one to your customers.

Record Net Sales

Once you deduct sales returns, discounts, and allowances from gross sales, the remaining figure is your net sales. Now, you need to record the net sales in your income statement. Typically, a firm records gross sales followed by allowances and discounts. The resulting figure is your net sales.

Net Sales Minus Cost of Goods Sold

Net sales minus the cost of goods sold is the gross margin of your business. It refers to the revenue that remains after considering the direct costs related to the manufacturing of products or services that you sell.

Gross margin is the amount of profit that remains before deducting selling, general, and administrative, and interest expenses. The higher the gross margin, the higher the capital your business retains on every dollar of sale.

So, the formula for gross margin is:

Gross Margin = Net Sales – COGS

where, Net Sales = Gross Sales – Sales Returns, Discounts, and Allowances

COGS = Direct costs related to producing goods and services. These include direct material, direct labour, etc.

Gross margin is an important figure that investors and other stakeholders keep a track of. This is because gross margin indicates the part of each dollar of revenue that your business retains as gross profit.

For instance, your business retains $0.20 for every dollar of revenue generated, provided it has a quarterly gross margin of 20%. It also means that the amount retained can be used towards paying debts and other expenses.

In addition to this, businesses also use gross margin to understand the relationship between their productions costs and revenues.

Net Credit Sales Formula

Net credit sales are sales made on credit and are the revenues your business generates on account of selling goods to customers on credit. This means that net credit sales do not include any sales made on cash, but they do take into account sales return and sales allowances.

This accounting item is used to calculate various other financial analysis items like days sales outstanding and accounts receivable turnover ratio. Besides this, net credit sales also indicate the amount of credit you offer to your customers.

Net Income Vs Net Sales