Finance question, possibly bug

First off, great job with the development of this game. I played some of the earliest alphas, and then took a break and recently came back with alpha 10. So much of the game has improved and I am excited to continue to see it develop.

I noticed something off about the finances, and I’m not sure if its a bug or just hasn’t be fully refined yet. We pay for products at wholesale prices and pay upfront with cash. But when you look at your daily finances, under resources, you are charged for each item you sold which is then subtracted from your daily revenue. Since we already paid for the items upfront, we essentially are being double charged for each item.

For this example, in my store ‘Grifty Gifts’ I had daily total sales of $6602.00, with $4,500 in expensive gifts. I sell expensive gifts at $50 a piece (which means I sold 90 yesterday). In the warehouse, I purchase a box of 200 for $1,260 ($6.30 a piece). As seen below under resources, it charges me $567 for expensive gifts which again comes out to $6.30 for each of the 90 I sold.

If this is not a bug, it needs to be explained much better, because this doesn’t make any sense to me business wise. If I am purchasing the inventory upfront from a wholesale provider, then when I sell the product, the revenue should be all mine, I should be having to still pay anyone for it. I hope this makes sense. If not, I will try and explain it clearer. (Also, regardless of whether this is a bug or intended feature, the cheap gifts in the picture below is broken)

Again, GREAT WORK on this game. From someone who played earlier and now is back, it is amazing how far it has come. Keep it up!!! I have some more thoughts/feedback that I will try to send your way as I continue playing alpha 10.

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I haven’t heavily crunched the numbers to confirm, but I noticed this as well and have been curious. I think it’s more of a thing that needs clarification than a bug.

From what I can see (it all happens so fast, so I could be missing it), but I believe you earn all the profits each day, without subtracting the cost of goods. This profit page seems to be more of an overall cost ratio of the items sold, rather than telling you how many dollars you specifically made yesterday.

I do agree, though, that if this is working as intended, it could use some clarity!

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I just crunched the numbers of what I am actually earning each day, and it is indeed subtracting the costs of goods. But I just realized that if you add up everything that is listed in the ‘last transactions’, it would actually be correct, but this is not what gets added to my bank account. What gets added to my bank account is the total at the bottom, which does subtract good cost. hopefully this picture helps the devs.

EDIT: Upon further discussion and research - the picture below is WRONG and is NOT correct. I am leaving the post and picture as record of the discussion, but please IGNORE the comments on the picture below. :slight_smile:

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In the income section by default you see the clean profit of your shops. Which means if you bought something for the store it will affect the profit. Click on any of your businesses in the income section, you will see more details about your business income and outcome.

Hmm…I just ran some numbers myself and came up with something strange.

I have 4 “businesses” going (HQ, warehouse, gifts, and fast food). I totaled each line item for the day at midnight on the dashboard and got: $16,354 (ran the numbers 3 times to account for my own stupidity while typing into a calculator)

However, it tells me the day’s profits are $16,583. There’s definitely something either missing for the line item list, or is being miscalculated…

I did the same for the previous day and came to a line-item loss of $256, but only showed a loss of $58. So for both days I actually earned more money than it tells me I should based on the line-item numbers.

Edit to add: The ACTUAL amount my bank increased was $16,354, NOT $16,583, meaning my own addition of the each line-item matches what my bank account reflects. The “Total Profit” seems like the lie!

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your edit is exactly correct - I just crunched the numbers again and actually tracked my balance from one day to the next and what is reported at midnight as “TOTAL PROFIT” is wrong.

So clarifying my original post for the devs – we are not being double charged for items, but the total profit reported each midnight includes the cost of items, but is not what actually is being added to our bank account.

If this is intended, then it probably just needs better clarification and explanation - otherwise players might be quite confused by all the numbers which show a different amount of profit than what is being added to their account.

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I have to say that when I first played the game I also noticed that. I usually ignore the EconoView stats, but it definitely seems like there’s something off.

My ideas:

  • We could fully delete the resources expenses information. The problem with this is that the total profit would be a lie: you’re still paying for the resources (even if it’s upfront)
  • We could change what is displayed. Instead of daily resources costs depending on the items sold, we could just display expenses related to deliveries that are targeted to that business. In this case, we’d only be able to track deliveries from delivery contracts, because player/warehouse purchases are not targeted for a specific business

Those are my ideas, but I don’t like any of them :joy:. One last option would be to make use of our new and fancy help system and explain how resources expenses work. Would that be enough?

What do you think? How would you approach it?

Need to separate between cashflow statement and P&L though… from an accounting perspective, when purchasing the item up front, it makes sense it is put on balance as goods in storage… then the income statement correctly charges the use of it as a cost on an ongoing basis. Having the profit coming up makes it possible to ensure you have a healthy margin, otoh the income statement more closely matches the bank addition, so maybe a good way to present it is adding more info… Income: A - Expenses: B = Net profit C type of thing? Tracking only the income has been detrimental for many firms, that incorrectly calculate the costs and leave too narrow margins, so wouldn’t recommend that :slight_smile:

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When comparing the EconoView with your bank statement, you also have to keep in mind that there’s “personal cost” like loan payments and apartment rent. So if your business makes $1000 profit a day, you might just end up with $800 in the end.

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When comparing the EconoView with your bank statement, you also have to keep in mind that there’s “personal cost” like loan payments and apartment rent.

So to confirm, there are some transactions NOT included in the “Total Profit” that ARE listed in the “last transactions” section? This would explain the discrepancy in those two numbers.

Personally, I don’t have any loans remaining or have an apartment (I sleep in my car), but would that include if I buy soda and put it in my personal fridge…is that NOT tracked in “total profit” since it’s not being sold in a business?

I think that’s correct, although I can’t tell for sure - only the devs can.

It’s generally a complicated topic, as we probably can’t go 100% realistic - for example with writing off trucks over longer time, spreading their cost over all affected businesses etc.
At least we need to find a way to give players the feeling that they’re “in control” and understand what’s happening.

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Your summary is not quite correct, I’d say its backwards. This is my understanding after all the conversations - all transactions ARE included in the “Total Profit”, but NOT all are listed in the “last transactions” (specifically the costs of goods AKA the ‘resource expenses’)

  • Your loan and home payments ARE included in “Total Profit” and ARE listed in the “last transactions”.
  • The “Costs of goods sold” ARE included in the “Total Profit” but are NOT listed in the “last transactions”
  • The “Total profit” that pops up at midnight and is at the top of your screen next to your balance is NOT the amount of money added to your bank account, but is the total profit seen in the EconoView (AKA accounting for good costs). The amount of money that is added to your account at midnight is the TOTAL of “Last Transactions” if you actually take the time to add it all up. This number DOES NOT appear anywhere in EconoView from what I can tell.

As far as suggestions for improvement, here are some thoughts:

  1. Changing from ‘resource expenses’ to something like ‘Cost of goods sold’ I think is much clearer in telling me what that item deduction is for
  2. I think if at midnight we reported both ‘Total Profit’ and something like ‘Net Cashflow’ which would be the total of the ‘Last Transactions’ that occurs at midnight and is how much money actually got added to my balance would be helpful.
  3. This picture is from a game I loved as a kid Restaurant Empire, and I always thought this was easy to follow and made sense to me. The one MAJOR difference between that game and this one is the fact that we directly purchase inventory in BA, usually on a separate day from when we sell it. That to me seems to be the major hurdle to figure out how to make it all clear to the player.

This has been a really good discussion and I hope it helps the devs some with ways to make this more clear for players. :slight_smile:

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Just to add a bit more:

The resources (=cost of goods) should be in the last transactions at the time when you buy them from wholesales.

The “last transactions” is literally that: A real time list of your bank account changes.

In the EconoView, we can only list those goods on the day they’re sold, because before that they’re not “connected” to the business. Remember you can always take a box and move it to another shop.
I think changing the label to “Cost of goods sold” is a good idea.

We also don’t have the shop interior anywhere listed in the BizMan, and there’s a similar problem. You can move it to another place anytime. For those, maybe a write-off would be a solution; just deduct a little bit every day for the business they’re placed in, until the purchase cost is met.

Quite a while ago I also already posted some ideas on how to change EconoView, although with a focus on different things: EconoView: Ideas for extension
One thing from that topic that I would really like to see is the option to buy a “pro version” of the app, so at first you just get some basic data but for a recurring fee you can get a more complex view.

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Your summary is not quite correct, I’d say its backwards. This is my understanding after all the conversations - all transactions ARE included in the “Total Profit”, but NOT all are listed in the “last transactions”

I guess it depends on what is being excluded from which list - I don’t have loans or a home, and my “Total Profit” was higher than my “Last Transactions” by around $200 for both days, so I’m not sure what is making my profit higher than expected.

Based on what @Gerwanese posted, it’s probably because certain items aren’t connected to a shop, so they aren’t considered to impact “profit”.

However, I do completely agree with this assessment:

  • The “Total profit” that pops up at midnight and is at the top of your screen next to your balance is NOT the amount of money added to your bank account, but is the total profit seen in the EconoView (AKA accounting for good costs). The amount of money that is added to your account at midnight is the TOTAL of “Last Transactions” if you actually take the time to add it all up. This number DOES NOT appear anywhere in EconoView from what I can tell.
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Or, as I seem to recall having been discussed elsewhere, connect it with hiring a CFO/CAO in the Headquarters (which is ultimately the same, but then covered in the existing game mechanings)

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I agree that the econoview should be reworked. It seems to me that you are double charged for inventory based on having the amount subtracted from your account immediately after purchase as well as having your total profit being reduced.

While it is correct to say the total profit is lower because you have to account for the cost, instead of adding total profit to your bank account, the game should add total profit plus negative item cost because, as many of you know, negative negative makes a positive.

This would be a small change to the calculation but it would allow the total profit to be shown correctly and it would allow the correct amount of money to be added to your account at the same time; ASSUMING that the other calculations are done correctly which, based on many of the other calculations above, need some work.

This is something I have noticed from the beginning which bugs me pun intended.

The calculations should be:

Gross income = deposited into account
Net income = “Total profits”

Aassuming I remember my terms properly.

I do see that the devs have announced theyre no longer worried about budget so I’m sure we’ll see these fixes.

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You aren’t being doubled-charged, and what you described is exactly what happens! The “profit” shows you a value that includes the cost of goods so you know how profitable the store is, but the amount you receive at midnight is the correct amount since you already paid for inventory.

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Thanks for replying. But isnt the amount you receive just the profit?

You should be receiving more than just the profit, it should be profit plus costs and as far as i have noticed you only receive whatever number is on the profit line at the end of the day.

I dont currently have my game open so i will need to double check but i think that is how it goes in my game at least.

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The amount you receive is not the same as the profit, and you are correct about what you should receive! As you can see in this screenshot, the “Profit” amount I have earned is $250,734, yet the amount I receive at midnight is $319, 367 for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

Big Ambitions 3_21_2023 7_05_30 AM

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Hi Dave thanks for clarifying. I have checked my own game and watched carefully and my game is calculating correctly as well I guess it’s just the income statement that is a little confusing with how it is displayed. Maybe if the columns were just renamed or a bit clearer it would make more sense.

I had thought that it was calculating incorrectly and it seems like it is at the beginning of the game but once you reach more mid game as I am now and have bigger deposits you can see the clear difference between the actual deposit amount and the profit number next to your total like you showed. I slept and my profit was 8k but my total earnings were 25k and my operations were around -13k so all good thanks for helping I’m not sure how I didn’t notice before.

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