Both accounts run at 38% gross margin. One takes four times the admin.

Gross margin says two customers are equally good. Everything that happens after the invoice says otherwise, and most of it is booked where nobody looks.

By Steve 5 min read
Abstract bridge artwork for Both accounts run at 38% gross margin. One takes four times the admin.

Pull the gross margin by customer out of most accounting systems and the result is oddly flat. The top ten accounts cluster within a few points of each other, because they were all quoted off the same rate card with the same discount logic. The conclusion is that the customer base is uniformly profitable and the problem lies elsewhere. Then someone points out that one of those accounts sends fourteen small orders a month while another sends one; that one insists on a bespoke delivery window, a monthly reconciliation call…

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