profit_and_lossRead-onlySee what you actually made — or lost — over a period
You want a straight answer to "did we make money this month" without pulling apart every category by hand.
A profit and loss statement is the report most people mean when they ask an assistant "how are we doing." Give it a date range and it totals every income and expense account in that window, then nets them into a single number: net income. Both income and expenses are reported as positive figures for readability — it's the net income figure that goes negative, and it does exactly that in a loss-making period, which is the honest signal that something needs attention.
The date range is inclusive on both ends, so "January through March" means transactions dated January 1st through March 31st are all counted, not cut off a day early or late. That matters when you're comparing quarters or trying to match a report to a specific filing period.
The genuinely useful feature here is the optional comparison period: pass a second from/to range alongside the first, and the report returns both periods' totals side by side. That turns "what did we make in June" into "did June beat May" without running two separate reports and doing the subtraction yourself — which is usually the actual question behind the request.
What this does not do
- Reflects only what has actually been posted — an unposted transaction sitting in the inbox doesn't appear in income or expenses until it's categorized.
- Comparison is opt-in; without a compareFrom/compareTo range, you only get the single period, not an automatic prior-period baseline.
Arguments
| Name | Type | Required | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
bookId | uuid | Required | — |
from | string | Required | — |
to | string | Required | — |
compareFrom | string | Optional | — |
compareTo | string | Optional | — |
Generated from the tool definition, so it cannot describe arguments the tool does not accept. Unrecognised arguments are rejected rather than ignored.
Common questions
- Why is net income negative even though the number I expected was positive?
- Net income is income minus expenses, and it's allowed to go negative in a loss-making period — that's intentional, not a display bug. Income and expenses themselves are always shown as positive numbers for readability.
- Can I compare this quarter to the same quarter last year?
- Yes — pass compareFrom and compareTo for whatever prior period you want alongside the main range. It doesn't have to be the immediately preceding period.
- Does this include transactions I haven't categorized yet?
- No. Only transactions that have actually been posted to an income or expense account show up. Anything still sitting unposted in the inbox is invisible to this report until it's categorized.