Accounting Dictionary

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Profit Ratio | Profit Margin Ratio

Definition: The profit ratio is the net profit of a business after taxes and all other charges, divided by net sales for the period.

For example, ABC International has net after-tax profits of $50,000 on net sales of $1,000,000, which is a profit ratio of:

$50,000 Profit / $1,000,000 Sales = 5% Profit ratio

The profit margin ratio is customarily used in each month of a month-to-month comparison, as well as for annual and year-to-date income statement results.

The profit ratio is a key indicator of the financial health of a business. However, it also suffers from the following flaws:

• It includes items that do not relate to the core operations of the business, such as interest income and expense. For example, a financing gain could mask an operating loss.
• It does necessarily match cash flows, since a variety of accruals required under accrual accounting can cause major divergences between profit or loss figures and cash flows.
• It is easily adjusted with accounting chicanery, such as using aggressive accruals or altering accounting policies.

For these reasons, it is best to use the profit ratio in conjunction with a variety of other metrics to ascertain the true health of a business.

The profit ratio is sometimes confused with the gross profit margin ratio, which is the gross profit divided by sales. It yields a much higher margin percentage than the profit ratio, since it does not include selling, administrative, or other non-operating expenses.

Similar Terms

The profit ratio is also known as the net profit margin ratio.