Real net profit · Profit
The one figure
Shopify does not give you.
Revenue minus every cost — goods, ads, payment fees, refunds, shipping and the VAT inside each European price — worked out each day and traceable to the orders it came from.
Measured, not estimated · EU-hosted · Read-only by default
- Net profit€2,521+2.5%
- Profit margin31.8%+0.7 pts
- Costs and tax€5,419sample month
- Gross revenue€7,940July
Eight steps, and each one opens to the orders and charges it was built from. €7,940 came in and €2,521 stayed. The bars are the figures themselves, so the two largest costs — the VAT inside the prices and the goods — are the two that look it.
01 / The case for it
Shopify reports what came in.
Without it
Revenue is the number the store shows you, and it is the one that ends up in your head. The advertising, the goods, the payment fees, the refunds and the tax all leave afterwards — on other screens, on other days — so the figure you carry around is the largest one you saw.
What Profflow does
One figure, after everything.
Every cost that actually left is taken out, in the order an accountant would take it, and the result is what stayed. Nothing is netted off quietly and nothing is added back to make the number look better.
02 / Worth understanding
The three places a profit figure goes wrong
The tax was never yours
A €40 price in Germany contains €6.39 of VAT. Read as revenue, every order in the month is overstated by the rate, and the error runs one way — in the store’s favour — which is the direction nobody catches. Profflow removes destination VAT as the order is read, before anything else is subtracted.
Today’s cost is not last month’s cost
Most tools hold one cost per product: the current one. Change a supplier price and last month’s margin changes with it, which means a closed month never stays closed. Here a cost carries the date it took effect, and an order is matched to the cost in force on the day it was placed.
A missing cost is not a zero
If a product has no cost of goods, the honest answer is that the margin is unknown for those orders, not that they were pure profit. The gap is shown on the screen, counted, and can carry an explicit fallback until the catalogue is finished.
03 / What it lets you do
What follows from getting Real net profit right.
After every cost
Goods, ads, payment fees, refunds, shipping, fixed costs and VAT come out of each period.
Traceable deductions
Open any figure and follow it to the dated orders and charges behind it.
Measured, not assumed
Actual fees and refunds are used where available; estimates stay labelled as estimates.
Per-order economics
See the profit left on an order after everything that order cost.
Period on period
Compare months on profit and margin, not gross sales.
VAT-aware from the start
European prices are read VAT-inclusive, so revenue is never overstated.
04 / What it is built from
Real net profit is assembled
from accounts you already run.
- 01Orders & refunds
- 02Payment fees
- 03Cost of goods
- 04Shipping & packaging
- 05Ad spend
- 06Destination VAT
- After every cost
- Traceable deductions
- Measured, not assumed
- Per-order economics
05 / How it is worked out
From the account
to the figure on the screen.
- 01ReadsEvery order, refund and fee, straight from the Shopify Admin API.
- 02AppliesYour VAT rate, cost of goods, shipping and packaging, per order.
- 03ReturnsOne net figure a day, each deduction traceable to its rows.
- 04SeparatesMeasured cost stays distinct from anything estimated.
[ Asked of the figures ]
Where did July’s profit actually come from?
Of €7,940 taken, €5,419 left again: €2,103 goods, €1,429 VAT, €1,180 ads, €405 fixed costs, €167 refunds and €135 fees. What stayed was €2,521.
How Profflow reasons06 / How the figure is kept honest
The same four rules,
on every screen.
- Read-only, on every plan
Profflow observes the accounts it is connected to. It does not write an order, a price, a campaign or a payout back to any of them.
- Measured stays measured
A charge read from an account is labelled measured. Anything modelled — a forecast, a projection, a filled gap — is labelled as such on the screen it appears on.
- Every figure opens
Follow any number to the dated rows underneath it. A figure nobody can check is a figure nobody acts on.
- You approve
The product prepares a decision and shows the evidence. Nothing consequential happens until you say so.
About
Real net profit.
Can’t find the answer to your question?
Contact us by clicking here.
No. Shopify reports what came in. This is what stayed after every cost, including the VAT inside European prices, which Shopify does not deduct.
Measured costs are used where you have entered them. Missing costs stay visible and can use an explicit fallback until the catalogue is complete.
No. Shopify access is read-only by default. Profflow observes the business; it does not alter the storefront.
Connect Shopify read-only and enter your costs once — usually under ten minutes to a real profit figure.
See Real net profit on your own figures.
Revenue minus every cost — goods, ads, payment fees, refunds, shipping and the VAT inside each European price — worked out each day and traceable to the orders it came from.