# Help

How to get your numbers in, what each figure means, and exactly what happens to your data.

- [Get your numbers in](https://findash.tech/help#get-started)
- [If a file won't load](https://findash.tech/help#problems)
- [What the numbers mean](https://findash.tech/help#glossary)
- [How we handle your data](https://findash.tech/help#privacy)
- [Printing and sharing](https://findash.tech/help#sharing)
- [Contact](https://findash.tech/help#contact)

## Get your numbers in: Excel, CSV or an invoice photo

Running a restaurant? The [restaurant P&L dashboard](https://findash.tech/restaurant-profit-and-loss) page shows how your lines map to FinDash's, and what food cost, labor and prime cost to expect.

FinDash needs one spreadsheet with a row for each month. The quickest way is the template: on the [dashboard](https://findash.tech/dashboard), press **Download Excel template** (or CSV). It comes filled in with three sample months, so you can see what goes where.

1. **Month and Year:** the month's name, such as July, and the year, such as 2026.
2. **Revenue:** everything that came in from sales that month.
3. **Budget:** the most you planned to spend that month in total. It is a spending limit, not a sales target. Leave it blank if you don't set one.
4. **The 14 cost columns:** each month's total for that cost. Leave a cost at 0 if you don't have it.

Save the file and drop it on the dashboard, or press **Choose file**. Excel (.xlsx) and CSV both work.

### From QuickBooks Online

1. Go to **Reports** and open **Profit and Loss**.
2. Pick the months you want and set **Display columns by** to **Months**.
3. Copy each month's income and cost totals into the matching template columns.

### From Xero

1. Open **Reports**, then **Profit and Loss**.
2. Choose your date range and compare by month.
3. Copy each month's totals into the template.

### From your own spreadsheet

- Put one month per row, with the template's column names across the top. The order of the columns doesn't matter.
- Common alternative names are recognised: Wages or Payroll for Labor, Advertising for Marketing, Cost of goods for Cost of goods sold, Repairs for Maintenance, and so on.
- A sheet laid out the other way round, with costs down the side and months across the top, is read too.
- Rows that add other rows up (Total costs, Gross profit, Net income) are spotted and left out, so nothing is counted twice.

A cost that doesn't have its own column? Add it to the closest one; the [cost groups below](https://findash.tech/help#glossary) say what belongs where.

The older two-file layout (one file with month, month num, revenue and budget, and one with the expense columns) still works: add both files together.

### From a photo of an invoice or receipt

For costs, you can skip typing: take a photo of a supplier invoice, a bill or a receipt, and add it to the dashboard the same way as a file. A screenshot of an emailed invoice works too.

- **Take a clear photo.** The whole page, flat, in good light, with every amount in the frame.
- **Claude reads it.** Each charged line is read, given in English (invoices in two languages are fine), and put in the cost line it belongs to: food and ingredients go to Cost of goods sold, takeout containers and bags to Packaging, and so on. Handwritten notes are not counted as charges, and free items are counted at zero.
- **The arithmetic is checked.** Each line's quantity times price must match its amount, and the lines must add up to the printed total. If they don't, the photo is read a second time with the mistakes pointed out. An amount that was cut off or too faded to read is worked out from quantity times price and marked so you can check it.
- **You check it before anything is added.** You see every line, can change the cost line any of them goes to, and choose the month (the invoice's own date by default). Nothing is added until you press **Add**.
- **It adds to that month.** The invoice's costs are added on top of the month's figures, so only add invoices your monthly file doesn't already count. A receipt for money you took in, such as a till report, adds to revenue. Every invoice you add is listed under the import box, with a **Remove** button.
- **It lists what you buy.** At the bottom of the dashboard, **What you buy** gathers every item from the invoices you've added: how much came in, what it cost in all, and whether its price went up or down since the delivery before. The same item on two invoices is matched by the supplier's item code, so it helps to keep the codes in the photo.
- **It compares like with like.** A change is shown only when both prices are for the same amount: $2 a pound and $3 a kilogram are compared per kilogram, never as a 50% rise. For a case or bag, press **Confirm size** once to say what it holds (or that the price is per pound), and later deliveries use it until you change it; earlier ones keep theirs. Prices on invoices in different currencies are never compared.

PDF invoices can't be read yet: open the PDF and take a screenshot of it instead.

## If a file won't load

- **"Columns not recognised"**: The file needs a Revenue column and at least one cost column such as Rent or Cost of goods sold. Check the top row holds column names, or start from the template.
- **".xls is the older Excel format"**: Open the file in Excel and choose **Save As**, then **Excel Workbook (.xlsx)** or **CSV**.
- **"Could not open"**: The file may be damaged or password-protected. Remove the password, save it again, and retry.
- **"Need one more file"**: You added half of the older two-file layout. Add the other file, or switch to the one-file template.
- **The months are in the wrong order or show the wrong year**: Add a Year column. Without one, every month is assumed to be in the current year.
- **"Photos can't be read here"**: Reading photos needs this site's AI service, and the copy of FinDash you're using doesn't have it set up. Use the template instead.
- **"This browser can't open that kind of photo"**: iPhones often save photos as HEIC, which some browsers can't open. Take a screenshot of the photo, or change your camera setting to "Most Compatible", and add that instead.
- **"The lines add up to … but the printed total is …"**: Even after a second look, the reading doesn't match the invoice's total. Check the lines marked in red against your paper copy. Retaking the photo flatter and in better light usually fixes it.
- **A figure is 100 times too big or too small**: Write amounts in full. 1,250.00 and 1.250,00 are both read correctly, but a short "1,25" could mean either 1.25 or 125, so it is read as 125.

## What the numbers mean

Every cost sits in exactly one of four groups, so the groups add up to your total costs and revenue minus total costs is your net profit. The same explanations appear behind each **?** on the dashboard.

### The four cost groups

- **Direct costs**: What it costs to make each sale or do each job: stock and ingredients (cost of goods sold), staff wages, staff meals and payroll tax.
- **Operating costs**: Costs that grow when you are busier but are not tied to one sale: packaging, card fees, marketing and small equipment.
- **Variable overhead**: Running costs that go up when you are busier, but not in step with sales: utilities and maintenance.
- **Fixed overhead**: Costs that don't change with sales, like rent, insurance, licences and phone. Usually the hardest to cut, because most of it is under contract.
- **Other (uncategorised)**: Money counted in this group's total that did not match one of the named lines, usually a column in your file with a name we did not recognise.

### Results

- **Revenue**: Everything that came in from sales in the period, before any costs are taken off.
- **Total costs**: Every cost in the four groups added together.
- **Gross profit**: Revenue minus direct costs, before rent, marketing and the other running costs.
- **Net profit**: What is left of revenue after every cost. A negative number is a loss.
- **Net margin**: The share of revenue you keep after every cost. 10% means you keep 10 of every 100 that comes in.
- **Shortfall**: How far costs ran past revenue in a month that made a loss.
- **% of revenue**: Each line as a share of revenue, so a busy month and a quiet one can be compared fairly.

### Budget

- **Budget**: The most you planned to spend in total that month. It is a spending limit, not a sales target.
- **Budget used**: Total costs as a share of your budget. Over 100% means you spent more than you planned.
- **Typical month**: Average total costs across every month on file.
- **Swing**: How much higher the worst month was than the average. “Steady” means within 10%.

### Forecast

- **Trend**: A straight line drawn through your monthly net profit and carried forward. It shows the direction things are moving, not a promise.
- **Range**: How far past months strayed from the trend. A wider range means the months have been less predictable.

## How we handle your data

**Your spreadsheet stays on your computer.** It is opened and added up by your own browser. It is never uploaded. Without an account, FinDash keeps none of your figures anywhere but your own browser.

Nine things can leave your computer, and only these:

- **When you log in or create an account:** your email and password go to Supabase, the service FinDash uses for logins, to check who you are. Accounts are optional.
- **While you are logged in:** your worked-out monthly figures and the invoice lines you confirmed are saved to your account with Supabase, so they are there on any computer you log in on. Not your file, not your photos, and nobody else can read them. **Forget my data** removes them from your account too.
- **When you add a photo** (while logged in): the photo is sent to Claude, Anthropic's AI model, to be read. FinDash does not store it; only the lines you confirm are kept.
- **When you press Get advice** (while logged in): each month's totals (revenue, the four cost groups, net profit and budget) are sent to Claude, Anthropic's AI model, which writes the advice. No line items, no names, not your file. FinDash does not store them.
- **When a column name isn't recognised** (while logged in): the column names from your file, never the numbers, are sent so the unfamiliar ones can be matched to the right cost group. Files that use the template's names never need this.
- **If you join the waitlist:** your email and your answers about your business are saved with Supabase, so we can email you about FinDash and decide what to build first. Never your figures.
- **If a forecasting model is offered:** once you have six months on file, a button may appear under the forecast. Pressing it sends the net profit figure for each month, nothing else.
- **If something on the page breaks:** the error's technical message and which part of FinDash it came from are sent to FinDash's own server log, so it can be fixed. Never your figures or your file.
- **Each page you visit:** which page it was, the site that linked to it, and your browser, device type and country are counted by Vercel Web Analytics, without cookies, so we can see how FinDash is used. Never your figures or your file.

**Saved in this browser:** after you add a file or a photo, the worked-out monthly figures, the invoice lines you confirmed and your latest advice (not the files or photos themselves) are kept in this browser on this device, so they are there next time. Unless you are logged in, they are never sent anywhere. Press **Forget my data** on the dashboard to remove them. On a shared computer, do that before you leave.

**If you log in:** the browser keeps a login cookie that only FinDash's own server can read, not the page or anything on it. It lasts up to 30 days, or until you press **Log out**. Logging out also removes your figures from that browser; they stay safe in your account.

**If this browser and your account disagree** (say you added a file before logging in), the dashboard asks which set of figures to keep, rather than guessing.

**Why photos and advice need an account:** each one is a paid request to Claude, so each account has a daily allowance. Everything else on the dashboard works without one.

**To delete your account:** log in, open the [Log in](https://findash.tech/login) page and press **Delete my account**. Your saved figures are removed straight away, and an email asking for your login to be deleted opens for you to send; you'll get a reply once it's done.

All of this, and who processes your data for us, is in the [privacy policy](https://findash.tech/privacy).

## Printing and sharing

- **Print or save as PDF** gives a clean, light report of the period on screen. In the print window, choose **Save as PDF** as the printer to get a file to email.
- **Export to Excel** downloads every line for every month side by side, with a total column, ready for your accountant, partner or bank.
- **Print count sheet**, under **What you buy**, prints a sheet for counting what's on your shelves: the food, ingredients and packaging from your invoices, under the names and codes your supplier uses, with a box beside each to write how many are on hand. It can also be downloaded for Excel.

## Contact

Found a problem, or have a question this page doesn't answer? Email [support.findash@findash.tech](mailto:support.findash@findash.tech?subject=FinDash). Please don't include your figures.

---

This is the Markdown version of https://findash.tech/help.

FinDash: [Home](https://findash.tech/) · [Dashboard](https://findash.tech/dashboard) · [Help](https://findash.tech/help) · [Waitlist](https://findash.tech/waitlist) · [Developers](https://findash.tech/developers) · [About](https://findash.tech/about) · [Contact](https://findash.tech/contact) · [Privacy](https://findash.tech/privacy) · [Terms](https://findash.tech/terms) · [llms.txt](https://findash.tech/llms.txt) · [Sitemap](https://findash.tech/sitemap.xml)