How is your business actually doing?
Five numbers and you have your profit, your margin, and how much of your money is sitting with customers or on your shelf. No account, and nothing you type leaves your phone.
The next three are optional. Each one you fill in adds a line to the result.
- What you sold
- NGN 0.00
- Cost of what you sold
- NGN 0.00
- Gross profit
- NGN 0.00
- Profit margin
- —
- Estimated profit
- NGN 0.00
These figures count everything you sold, paid or not. They are before tax, loan repayments, anything you take out for yourself, and the fees a payment provider charges you — so treat the profit as an estimate, and a good one to take to your accountant.
Working out the margin on a single item instead? Use the profit margin calculator.
Profit, cash, and the difference between them
- What is the difference between gross profit and net profit?
- Gross profit is what is left after the cost of the goods or work you sold — the stock, the materials, the labour that went into the job. Net profit is what is left after everything else as well: rent, staff, data, transport, fuel. A trader with ₦1,200,000 of sales and ₦650,000 of stock cost has ₦550,000 of gross profit, and if running the shop takes another ₦270,000, the ₦280,000 left is what the business actually made. The gap between the two figures is the number most owners have never worked out.
- Why is my business profitable but I have no money?
- Because profit is not cash. Money a customer has not paid still counts as a sale from the moment you invoice it, and stock on your shelf was bought with cash that is now sitting there as goods. A business that made ₦280,000 this month can easily have ₦190,000 outstanding with customers and ₦420,000 in stock — ₦610,000 that is real and not spendable. This is the most common reason a growing Nigerian business runs short of money, and it is why this checkup asks for both figures rather than stopping at profit.
- What counts as the cost of what I sold?
- Only the direct cost of the things you actually sold in the period: what you paid your supplier, plus transport and handling to get the goods to you. Not the stock still sitting unsold — that has not become a cost yet, it is your money in another form. Rent, salaries, data and fuel are real costs but they belong in the 'everything else' box, because folding them into cost of sales makes your gross margin look worse than it is and hides what your overheads are actually doing.
- Should I count money customers still owe me as sales?
- This checkup does, and it says so under the results. A sale happens when you deliver and invoice, not when the money lands, and counting it that way is what makes the figure match what you actually sold in the period. The risk is that it flatters you when a lot is unpaid — which is exactly why what customers owe you is a separate line rather than folded into the total. Read the two together: the profit tells you the business works, the outstanding figure tells you whether you can spend it.
- How often should I check this?
- Monthly is right for most small businesses, and quarterly is about the point where the numbers stop describing anything you can still change. What matters more than how often is that the basis stays the same each time — the same length of period, the same rule about what goes into cost of sales — because a margin is only useful next to the last one you worked out. One reading tells you very little. Six in a row tell you the direction, which is the thing worth knowing.
- Does this include tax?
- No, deliberately. The profit here is before company tax, before VAT, and before any loan repayment or money you take out for yourself. Nigerian tax rules changed in 2026 and what applies to a small business now depends on turnover and assets together, so a free tool that guessed your position would be wrong more often than right. Work the profit out here, then take that figure to your accountant — it is the number they will ask for first.
A checkup you type out is one month. A record is every month.
WadMaster keeps track of your invoices, your expenses and your stock, so these five numbers are already there — and nobody has to go looking for them again.
Start free
Free plan · No card required