Profit & Loss

What is this page?

The Profit & Loss (P&L) page is your complete financial statement for your TikTok Shop. It can show profit on either a settlement basis or an accrual basis, and it keeps product sales, customer-paid shipping, shipping costs, TikTok fees, COGS, overhead, and ad spend visible as separate components.

Think of it as a financial report card: Revenue tells you how much came in, Expenses tell you how much went out, and Profit tells you what you kept.

Understanding the P&L Structure

The P&L page presents metrics in a hierarchical tree. In accrual view the visible order-side components form the profit bridge. In settlement view, TikTok-side rows also explain amounts already included in the settlement anchor, so they should not be subtracted a second time.

Revenue
  - Gross Sales (product-only, before discounts)
  - Discounts (subtracted)
  = Net Sales

Shipping
  + Customer-paid shipping
  + Shipping costs / TikTok adjustments (signed)
  = Net Shipping

Cost of Goods
  - COGS
  = Gross Profit (Net Sales - COGS)

Operating Expenses
  - Shipping Costs
  - FBT Fees
  - Platform Fees & Taxes
      - Referral Fee
      - Co-funded Promotion Fee
      - Other Fees
  - Affiliate Commissions
      - Sales Commission
      - Ads Commission
  - Sample Costs
  - Refunds & Returns
  - Manual Adjustments
      - Manual Income (adds to profit)
      - Manual Expenses (subtracts from profit)
  = Operating Profit

Below the Line
  - Net Ad Spend
  = Net Profit

(Platform Subsidy is shown for reference only -- it is already included in your sales revenue, so it is not added here.)

Key Metrics on This Page

Revenue Section

Gross Sales

• What it shows: Total product sales at the original listed price before any discounts.
• Formula: Sum of (Original Price x Quantity) across all orders
• Important: This is merchandise only. It does not include shipping. If you sold a 25 item with a 5 discount and charged 4 shipping, Gross Sales records 25; the discount and customer-paid shipping are separate rows.

Shipping Revenue

• What it shows: The total amount customers paid for shipping on their orders.
• Important: This is what customers were charged for shipping, not what it cost to fulfill the shipment. Product and Product Overview breakdowns label it Customer-paid shipping.

Discounts

• What it shows: Total seller-initiated discounts applied to orders.
• Important: Only includes discounts funded by you (the seller). TikTok platform discounts from co-funded promotions are not included here -- TikTok's contribution appears as Platform Subsidy, and your share of co-funded campaigns appears under Platform Fees as Co-funded Promotion Fee.

Net Sales

• What it shows: Product revenue after seller discounts. Shipping remains separate.
• Formula: Gross Sales - Seller Discounts
• Example: 5,000 Gross Sales - 800 Discounts = $4,200 Net Sales, with any customer-paid shipping shown separately.

Cost Section

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

• What it shows: The total cost of the inventory you sold during this period.
• Important: Dashboardly uses a priced FIFO lot when one covers the unit, otherwise the SKU Unit COG period active on the order date, then the product period active on that date. A new period does not rewrite earlier order dates. See Setting Up COGS and FIFO Cost Tracking.
• Edge case -- cancelled orders: If an order was cancelled after the product shipped and the customer did not return the product, the COGS for that order is still counted. This is correct because the product left your inventory and the cost is real, even though the sale was reversed.

Gross Profit

• What it shows: Revenue minus the cost of goods -- how much you keep before any fees or expenses.
• Formula: Net Sales - COGS
• Example: 4,400 Net Sales - 1,800 COGS = $2,600 Gross Profit

Expense Section

The rows below fall into two groups. TikTok-side rows -- Net Shipping, FBT Fees, Platform Fees & Taxes, Affiliate Commissions, and Refunds & Returns -- are a transparency view of what TikTok already deducted before settling your deposit; they break down your settlement and are not subtracted from Net Sales one by one. Your own merchant costs -- Sample Costs, Manual Adjustments, and FBS Manual Shipping -- are applied separately, on top of your TikTok settlement (your product cost, COGS, is already taken out above in Gross Profit). Because the TikTok-side rows decompose a single settled figure -- and very recent orders stay estimated until TikTok settles them -- adding the rows up by hand will not land exactly on Operating Profit.

Shipping Costs and Net Shipping

• Shipping Costs: TikTok/carrier shipping charges and adjustments. This row is normally a deduction.
• Net Shipping: Customer-paid shipping plus the signed shipping-cost/adjustment components.
• Important: A buyer paying for shipping does not guarantee positive Net Shipping. If the label, TikTok adjustment, seller-funded shipping discount, or return-shipping charge is larger than the amount collected, the difference is a seller expense.
• Example: Customer-paid shipping of +5.99 and shipping costs of -7.50 produce Net Shipping of -$1.51.

FBT Fees (Fulfilled by TikTok)

• What it shows: Fees charged by TikTok for warehouse storage and fulfillment services.
• Important: Only applies if you use TikTok's fulfillment service (FBT/FBM). If you handle your own fulfillment, this will be $0.

Platform Fees & Taxes

• What it shows: TikTok marketplace fees that are charged on each order.
• Expandable breakdown:
  • Referral Fee -- TikTok's base marketplace commission on each sale
  • Co-funded Promotion Fee -- Your share of the cost when participating in TikTok co-funded promotions. This is separate from Platform Subsidy (which is TikTok's share that benefits you).
  • Other Fees -- Additional platform charges including payment processing fees and other marketplace fees
• Important: When detailed fee breakdown data is available (from settled orders), you can expand this row to see each component. For very recent orders that have not yet settled, only the total estimate is shown.

TikTok Statement Fees & Adjustments

• What it shows: Account-level charges, credits, reimbursements, penalties, balance movements, and corrections that TikTok reports in settlement statements. These entries may not belong to one specific order.
• How to read the sign: A positive amount increases the amount TikTok settles to you. A negative amount reduces it.
• Expandable breakdown: Dashboardly keeps each known TikTok transaction type in a separate row, including FBT warehouse fees, GMV-paid Ads, platform penalties, chargebacks, reimbursements, shipping corrections, commission or promotion corrections, rewards, service-package fees, and negative-balance movements. Rows with no activity are hidden.
• Not a second deduction: These signed movements are already included in the settlement amount used for Operating and Net Profit. Expanding the row explains the settlement; the child rows are not subtracted again.
• GMV-paid Ads: The full TikTok statement charge remains visible. A separate GMV-paid Ads Reclassification offsets only the overlap already included in Dashboardly Ad Spend. It is not another charge and does not change final Net Profit.
• Reason Not Provided: TikTok included the amount but did not provide a transaction type or reason through the partner API. Use the displayed statement or adjustment ID to find the authoritative reason in TikTok Seller Center.
• Other TikTok Adjustments: TikTok explicitly sent the type OTHER_ADJUSTMENT.
• Unrecognized TikTok Adjustments: TikTok sent a new type that Dashboardly has not classified yet. The signed amount is still preserved so totals remain correct.
• Reserve movements: TikTok reserve activity affects payout timing. It is excluded from Operating and Net Profit until TikTok reports the corresponding non-reserve settlement activity.

Affiliate Commissions

• What it shows: Commissions paid to TikTok Shop affiliates and partners who promoted your products.
• Expandable breakdown:
  • Sales Commission -- Paid to creators/influencers who promote your products
  • Ads Commission -- Paid to affiliate network partners
• Important: These commissions are a cost of having affiliates promote your products. The more affiliate-driven sales you have, the higher this expense will be. You can see the affiliate sales revenue separately in the revenue section.

Sample Costs

• What it shows: The total cost of sending free products to influencers as samples.
• Formula: Sample COGS + Sample Shipping + Sample Fees
• Important: Sample orders are products you send to influencers at no charge. They do not generate revenue, so their costs (product cost, shipping, and any platform fees) are tracked here as a marketing expense. This helps you measure the true cost of your influencer marketing program.

Refunds & Returns

• What it shows: The total financial impact of refunds, returns, and cancelled orders.
• Formula: Product Refund Value + Other Refund Costs + Cancelled Orders Value
• Breakdown:
  • Product Refund Value -- The sale price of refunded items (not including tax)
  • Other Refund Costs -- Shipping fee refunds and other costs associated with refunds
  • Cancelled Orders Value -- The payment value of cancelled orders
• Important about dates: Refund amounts are attributed to the date the refund was processed (completion date), not the original order date or the date the customer filed the request. Cancelled orders are attributed to the date the order was cancelled, not the date it was placed. This date attribution can cause differences when comparing to TikTok Seller Center on a day-by-day basis. See My Numbers Don't Match TikTok.

Manual Adjustments

• What it shows: Any income or expenses you have manually added through the Manual Adjustments page.
• Expandable breakdown:
  • Manual Income -- Adds to your profit (e.g., income from other sources, rebates)
  • Manual Expenses -- Reduces your profit (e.g., packaging costs, software fees)
  • FBS Manual Shipping -- Shipping costs you manually entered for FBS (Fulfilled by Seller) orders
• Allocation modes: Adjustments support three allocation methods -- Fixed Amount for predictable costs, Formula for costs that combine a base fee with a percentage of revenue, and Per Order for costs that scale with your daily order count (e.g., $2/order for pick-and-pack labor). See Creating Manual Adjustments for details.
• Important: These adjustments let you account for costs and income that TikTok does not track, giving you a more complete picture of your business finances.

Profit Section

Operating Profit

• What it shows: Your profit from core operations before ad spend.
• How it is calculated: It is anchored to the total amount TikTok actually settles to you -- the settlement deposits across both order and non-order statement lines -- then adjusted for the costs TikTok does not handle: minus Cost of Goods Sold, sample/marketing costs, manual expenses, and FBS manual shipping, plus manual income and reclaimable VAT where configured.
• Important: The fee, shipping, refund, and affiliate rows above are a breakdown of what TikTok already deducted before paying you -- shown here for transparency. They are not separate amounts subtracted from Net Sales, so adding the rows up by hand will not exactly equal Operating Profit. This is the core measure of whether your shop's operations are profitable before external factors like TikTok subsidies or advertising. If you use per-order variable cost adjustments (e.g., $2/order for fulfillment labor), those costs scale automatically with your daily order volume and are included in this figure.

Pending Settlement Estimate Adjustment

• What it shows: A temporary reconciliation between TikTok's independent provisional estimates for orders that have not settled yet.
• Important: It can change or disappear when TikTok finalizes the affected orders. It is not an additional merchant expense and should not be copied into Manual Adjustments.

Unallocated Adjustment

• What it shows: The remaining reconciliation difference after every explainable product, shipping, fee, refund, manual, statement, and pending-settlement component has been displayed.
• Important: It closes the visible breakdown to the reported Operating Profit. It can be positive or negative and is not automatically an extra charge. On recent periods it may shrink as TikTok settlement detail arrives; for a settled-period audit, use Settlement basis and Statement date when available.

Platform Subsidy

• What it shows: Money contributed by TikTok through co-funded promotions.
• Important: This is shown for transparency only. It is TikTok's contribution to your co-funded promotions, and that amount is already included in your sales revenue (and in your TikTok settlement deposits) -- so it is not added to Net Profit a second time. Do not confuse this with Co-funded Promotion Fee (your cost to participate); Platform Subsidy is TikTok's contribution that helps you.

Ad Spend

• What it shows: Your advertising expenditure on TikTok Ads.
• Important: Only appears if you have connected TikTok Ads to your Dashboardly account in Settings. If not connected, this row will show $0.

Net Profit

• What it shows: Your final bottom-line profit.
• Formula: Operating Profit - Net Ad Spend
• Example: 800 Operating Profit - 100 Net Ad Spend = $700 Net Profit

GMV (Gross Merchandise Value)

• What it shows: The total amount customers effectively paid at checkout, including TikTok's subsidy contributions.
• Formula: GMV Base (Sub Total + Shipping Fee) + Platform Subsidy
• Important: GMV is different from Gross Sales in two ways: (1) GMV uses the post-discount sub-total (what the customer actually paid for the product), while Gross Sales uses the original pre-discount price; (2) GMV includes TikTok's platform subsidy contributions. GMV also includes cancelled orders, matching how TikTok Seller Center calculates this metric.

Features

Report Basis

The Report basis control separates two independent choices:

• Order date groups activity by when the order was sold.
• Statement date groups settled TikTok statement activity by the statement/payout reconciliation date. This option is available only for supported shops and is settlement-only.
• Settlement basis uses TikTok settlement amounts where available and estimates for orders still pending settlement. Use it to reconcile to TikTok statements and payouts.
• Accrual basis recognizes profit on the actual orders sold in the selected period. The Full statement may show settlement reconciliation as an audit reference, but it is not deducted from accrual profit.

Use Order date + Accrual basis to evaluate what the selected day's sales earned. Use Settlement/Statement date when matching TikTok's finalized financial exports. Recent unsettled days can refine as authoritative settlement components arrive in either view.

Time Period Grouping

Switch between Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly views using the dropdown selector. Each column in the table represents one period.

Date Range Picker

Select any custom date range. The P&L will display columns for each period within that range based on your grouping selection.

P&L Chart Toggle

Toggle "Show P&L Chart" to display a visual chart overlaying revenue, expenses, and profit trends over time. This makes it easy to spot whether your margins are improving or declining.

GMV Percentage Toggle

Toggle "% of GMV" to see every row expressed as a percentage of GMV. This helps you understand what proportion of total customer spend goes to each expense category. For example, if Platform Fees show as 8% of GMV, that means TikTok charges about 0.08 in fees for every 1.00 of customer spending.

Search

Use the search bar to quickly find specific line items in the P&L tree.

Expandable Rows

Parent rows (like "Platform Fees & Taxes") can be expanded to see their children (Referral Fee, Co-funded Promo Fee, Other Fees). Click the arrow next to any parent row to expand or collapse it. This lets you drill into any expense category for more detail.

Common Questions

Why is my Net Profit higher than my Operating Profit?

Net Profit is not raised by Platform Subsidy. The subsidy is TikTok's contribution to your co-funded promotions, and that amount is already included in your sales revenue (and in your TikTok settlement deposits) -- so it is not added to Net Profit a second time. Net Profit = Operating Profit - Net Ad Spend. With no ad spend, Net Profit equals Operating Profit. See Profit Metrics for more details.

Why is Net Shipping negative if every customer paid for shipping?

Customer-paid shipping is a credit, but it is only one side of the calculation. TikTok/carrier costs and adjustments may be larger. Compare the Customer-paid shipping and Shipping Costs rows for the same date range and report basis.

What is Unallocated Adjustment?

It is the residual required to reconcile the visible components to Operating Profit after known buckets have been shown. It is not automatically a new expense. Use a fully settled period and Settlement basis for the cleanest TikTok statement comparison.

Why did profit change overnight?

Recent orders use preliminary TikTok settlement and ad values. A large temporary change can occur when one component arrives before its matching charge or credit. Once TikTok finalizes the orders and ad day, Dashboardly replaces the provisional values. Check the same date range and report basis, then review Pending Settlement Estimate Adjustment and data-readiness notes.

Why do the numbers change after a few days?

New orders start with estimated fees (Tier 3 data). Fees are estimated using your shop's historical average fee rate, so they are usually close to the final amount. As TikTok settles the transactions (typically within 7-14 days), exact amounts replace the estimates. Revenue figures are accurate from the start -- only fees and cost allocations refine over time. See Data Accuracy for more details.

Why does my P&L not match TikTok Seller Center exactly?

Small differences are normal for several reasons:

1. Date attribution: Dashboardly attributes refunds to the date they were processed (completion date), while TikTok may use a different date. Cancelled orders are attributed to the cancellation date, not the order date.
2. Settlement timing: Some transactions may fall in different periods due to settlement timing.
3. Additional data: Dashboardly includes COGS, manual adjustments, FBS shipping, and sample costs that TikTok does not track.
4. Cancellation handling: TikTok may combine refund and cancellation values into a single number, while Dashboardly separates them for clarity.

For a detailed breakdown of why differences occur and how to reconcile them, see My Numbers Don't Match TikTok.

What is the difference between Gross Sales and GMV?

Gross Sales = Original product prices before discounts (your pre-discount revenue). GMV = Post-discount product prices + shipping fees, with the co-funded version also showing TikTok's contribution. GMV and Gross Sales use different price bases, so neither should be substituted for the other in a profit calculation.

What is FBS Manual Shipping?

If you fulfill orders yourself (FBS -- Fulfilled by Seller) and enter your shipping costs manually in Dashboardly, those costs appear here. This is separate from TikTok-managed shipping costs, which appear in the Shipping Costs row.

How do I add costs that TikTok does not track?

Use Manual Adjustments to add any income or expenses that are not automatically tracked by TikTok. Common examples include packaging materials, software subscriptions, warehouse rent, or income from other sales channels. These will appear on the P&L under Manual Adjustments.