Materials, staff, rent, tools, insurance, fuel, software - every real cost the business carried. Leave out only the money you took home for yourself; that's the next box.
You
$
Everything you took out of the business for yourself over the year - paycheck plus any owner draws. The real number, not just the official salary.
What the job is worth
$
Not what you wish - what the market would actually charge you. A working foreman, a shop manager, a GM who sells and runs the place. The going rate to replace you.
Fill in all five boxes - what came in, what it cost to run, what you paid yourself, your hours, and what your job is worth.
Watch your "profit" become a paycheck:
What the business brought in—
Cost to run it (not your pay)—
What it made before paying you—
A fair wage for your job—
True return on the business—
owner's wage card
Before paying you
—
what the business cleared first
A fair wage for your job
—
the going rate to replace you
True business return
—
what's left - the part you could sell
Your real hourly
—
your take, at the hours you work
Why we charge you a wage you didn't pay
Accountants call it owner's compensation, or imputed labor. A business that only looks profitable because the owner works for free - or for less than the job pays - isn't profitable; it's subsidized. We charge your labor at the market rate so the number tells you whether the business stands on its own, separate from how hard you're willing to work.
This is one instrument in your cockpit. The same gap - what the number says vs. what's actually there - is hiding in your cash runway, your customer mix, and the price you charge. Want me to look at the rest?
What the return does when the picture shifts
Your numbers today
—
true return on the business
If you took two weeks off
—
true return on the business
If you tried to grow 20%
—
hours a week, just to keep up
Stress scenarios use fixed parameters. Two weeks of coverage and 20% more volume aren't disasters - they're an ordinary vacation and an ordinary good year.