How do you know if a business is profitable?

Answer 1

Profit v Non-profitIf they're non-profit, they may be happy to tell you all about it, if you just ask.

Otherwise, find out where they're doing business, if they're registered, and if they're incorporated. Then look up their papers in the local Secretary of State's office (or equivalent agency handling records of corporations), many of which now have online database access. If they're a registered charity, they may also show up on the IRS publication of charities, somewhere at irs.gov.

This may not find all non-profits in the USA, but it's a start.

Mcclarty- Due to the new 990's that non-profits are required to file, they are posted on the IRS website. Most tax-exempt non-profits must register with Guidestar.com as well, so you would be able to find them through a search.

Answer 2

Revenues-Expenses=net income

Just to add on to this, if you were to add up all of your expenses and subtract them from your revenues or sales, you will either get a nat gain or a net income or you will get a net loss. you can easily figure out if you business is at all profitable just by checking to see if you sales were larger than your expenses (if you don't want to know how big a profit or you just don't want to do the math).