BlogCosts, updated
Profit on paper, cash in the bank
At a lot of nurseries the profit and loss arrives once a year, from the accountant, some months after the season it describes. In between, the owner runs the business from the bank balance, a folder of invoices and a feel for how spring went. That feel is often good. It is also how a nursery can have its best sales year and still struggle to make payroll in July.
Profit and cash are different numbers
A nursery spends its money long before it earns it. Liners, pots, media and two or three seasons of labour go into a block before anything is sold, and the sale counts as profit the day you invoice it. The cash comes later, when the landscaper pays, and a profitable year can leave the bank account empty in the gap.
That gap is wider than most owners plan for. In a 2016 study of 597,000 small businesses banking with Chase, the JPMorgan Chase Institute found the median business held enough cash for 27 days of outgoings if money stopped coming in, and wholesalers 23. The data is from 2015 and covers small businesses in general rather than nurseries. On the other side of the gap, credit insurer Atradius reported in 2026 that late payment affects an average of 22% of business-to-business receivables in the US, and Atradius sells insurance against exactly that risk.
Where the margin leaks
Margin rarely goes all at once and usually drifts away. A customer was given ten off in 2021 and still has it. A best-selling line is the one priced thinnest, so the busier it gets, the less each sale earns. Plants are dumped and nobody adds up what they cost. A landscaper who pays at ninety days is, in effect, borrowing from you for free. Meanwhile the USDA's 2024 Census of Horticultural Specialties put industry expenses up about a third since 2019, so a price that was fine five years ago may be losing money now. None of this shows on a year-end statement until it is too late to change, but all of it shows in the monthly figures.
Half an hour a month
Four questions, asked once a month, catch most of it. Are sales up or down on the same month last year, and in which categories? Who owes you money, and how late is it? Anything past sixty days deserves a call this week. What was dumped, and why? Frost is weather, but the same disease twice is a growing problem. And who carries the business? Most nurseries find a handful of customers and products doing most of the work, and one regular whose orders have been quietly shrinking.
By hand, that is an evening with a calculator and a spreadsheet, which is why it happens in January if at all. A family yard can still manage it. A larger operation usually needs it to be somebody's job.
Reports in Sprout
Sprout's Reports screen answers those four questions from the orders, payments and counts already in it. Sales Comparison sets a period against the days before it or the same days last year, by category and by customer. Sales by Customer shows each buyer's orders, average order and last order, and Sales by Product the units and average price after discounts. Receivables Aging sorts what you are owed into not yet due, one to thirty days, thirty-one to sixty, sixty-one to ninety and over ninety, by customer and by order. Payments Received and Dumps, with plants, cost and reason, complete the set, and each report downloads as a PDF or an Excel file for your accountant. The Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet are built from what goes through Sprout, such as invoices and payments, so they show the selling side of the business while wages, rent and fuel stay in your accountant's books. A one-person yard gets its January evening back, and a larger operation gets the whole sales team looking at the same figures.