Brightside Physio group
Profit and loss slide with eight lines and a change column
A profit and loss slide has to survive someone adding it up in their head, which means the line items must reconcile and the rounding must be consistent. This one covers two financial years at Brightside Physio, a fictional clinic group, in eight rows and four columns.
What is on the slide
- Headline
- BRIGHTSIDE PHYSIO above FY25 Against FY24.
- Trading lines
- Revenue $4.12M to $4.68M, up 14%. Cost of sales $612k to $702k, up 15%. Gross profit $3.51M to $3.98M, up 13%.
- Operating costs
- Wages $2.24M to $2.49M, up 11%. Rent $386k to $402k, up 4%. Marketing $118k to $171k, up 45%.
- Result lines
- EBITDA $764k to $915k, up 20%. Net profit $483k to $595k, up 23%, struck after depreciation, interest and tax.
When this is the right slide
A P and L table belongs on the slide when the audience will question individual lines, which a chart of the same figures makes impossible to do.
What to swap it for
Metrics: Financial Chart with Line-Item Breakdown. Swap to the chart with a line item breakdown when the trend matters as much as the lines, so a chart can sit beside a shorter table.
What this slide shows
An eyebrow reading BRIGHTSIDE PHYSIO sits above the headline FY25 Against FY24, and below them a four column table fills the canvas. The columns are line item, FY24, FY25 and change, with the first column weighted wider so the names never wrap. Eight rows run in the order a reader expects: revenue, cost of sales, gross profit, wages, rent, marketing, EBITDA and net profit. The header row is filled in the theme's brand colour and the body rows alternate a light tint, so the eye can travel along a row across four columns without losing its place. Nothing sits under the table, so the fact that net profit is struck after depreciation, interest and tax is carried by the presenter and by the pack the slide belongs to. Every value is a pre formatted string rather than a number the layout reformats, so $4.12M and +14% appear exactly as written.
Who this slide is for and when to use it
Board packs, lender reviews, annual results and any meeting where someone is accountable for a specific line. The audience is numerate and will read down the table rather than listen to it, so the slide is built for scanning rather than for narration. It is the wrong slide for a staff all hands, where three figures and a sentence will do more, and the wrong slide for an investor pitch, where the same numbers usually belong in a chart with the commentary that makes them a story. It also has a hard limit of about ten rows. A full statutory profit and loss statement has more lines than that, so the version on the slide is a summary and the detailed statement lives in the appendix or the pack.
How to adapt it
First, choose the rows by what the audience controls. A clinic group argues about wages and rent, so those get their own lines, while depreciation and interest can stay behind the net profit line. A software company would give hosting and payroll their own rows instead. Second, change the columns before you change the rows when the question changes. Budget against actual needs plan, actual and variance rather than two years, and the same eight rows still work. Third, keep the table to eight or nine rows and push everything else behind the slide. If the meeting keeps asking for a line that is not there, that is a sign the summary is wrong, not that the table needs to be longer. When the audience wants both the lines and the trend, the financial chart layout puts a shorter table next to a chart, which reads better than a table with a sparkline column.
What makes this slide work
The subtotals follow from the lines above
Revenue of $4.68M less cost of sales of $702k gives the $3.98M gross profit, and gross profit less wages, rent and marketing gives the $915k EBITDA. Both subtotals can be checked from the slide alone. A P and L where the subtotal is a separate assertion is the sort of slide that produces a request for the spreadsheet.
One rounding convention across the table
Figures over a million are shown to two decimal places in millions, and everything below is shown in thousands. Nothing switches unit mid column. That consistency is what lets a reader compare rent at $402k with marketing at $171k without pausing, and it is the easiest thing to get wrong when a table is assembled from two different reports.
The change column carries the story
Marketing up 45% against revenue up 14% is the line the meeting will be about, and it is visible without anyone calculating a ratio. Because every row has a change figure, the outlier stands out by contrast rather than by highlighting, which keeps the table free of colour coding that would fight the theme.
Questions people ask
How many lines should a profit and loss slide show?
Six to ten. This slide uses eight, which covers trading, the three largest operating costs and two result lines. Beyond ten rows the type shrinks and the audience starts reading the table as a document rather than a slide. The statutory statement, with every line, belongs in the appendix where it can be read at desk distance.
Which rows can safely be dropped for a board deck?
Anything the board cannot influence or has already approved: small overheads, amortisation, and most below the line items. Keep revenue, the largest two or three costs, and the subtotals people are held to. If a dropped line changes the story, say so out loud, the way this slide's presenter has to for depreciation, interest and tax.
Should the slide show percentages or dollars?
Both, in separate columns. Dollars in the period columns and a percentage in the change column is the combination that answers how big and how fast in one pass. A table of percentages alone hides the scale, and a table of dollars alone makes every reader compute growth rates while the presenter is talking.
How should the numbers be rounded?
Pick one convention for the whole table and apply it everywhere. Here, anything over a million shows two decimals in millions and everything else shows whole thousands. Mixed rounding inside one column is what makes a reader stop and check, and once they have stopped to check one row they tend to check them all.
Is EBITDA the right subtotal to show?
It is if the audience uses it, and many lenders and investors do. What matters is that the reader can see how it was built: gross profit less the operating lines on the slide. If your audience budgets to operating profit instead, use that subtotal and move depreciation into the visible rows.
Can a chart replace this table?
Only for a different question. A chart is better at showing direction across many periods and worse at letting someone query one line. If a meeting needs both, the financial chart layout carries a shorter table beside a chart, which keeps the queryable rows on the canvas and gives the trend somewhere to live.
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