MarginPatrol | Version 1.0 | Prepared 08 August 2026
Publication date: 02.09.2026. Effective date: 02.09.2026. Canonical page: https://marginpatrol.com/financial-disclaimer.
1. Purpose and limits
MarginPatrol is a tool for daily monitoring of a Shopify store's operating-profit components and financial signals. It brings together authorised data, configured cost rules and manual entries, identifies limitations and helps you inspect the relevant records.
It is not accounting, tax, audit, investment, credit or personalised financial-advice software. It does not provide an audited statement, certify a store's profitability or guarantee that a business decision will improve results. This disclaimer does not excuse failure to exercise reasonable care, override an express contractual promise or restrict liability and remedies that cannot lawfully be excluded.
2. Meaning of the calculation
The standard store-level calculation is:
Net revenue = Product sales + Shipping charged − Discounts − Refunds
Profit before ads = Net revenue − Product costs − Shipping costs − Payment fees
Operating profit = Profit before ads − Ad spend
The breakdown identifies the included components, source, period, currency and data quality. Refunds, cost reversals and permitted corrections follow their recorded financial events and the Service's applicable calculation rules. A refund date can differ from the original sale date. Costs entered for an original order can change related refund calculations.
The calculation is not the Merchant's complete statutory or management P&L. Taxes and tax filings, payroll, rent, owner salary, depreciation, financing, cash flow and other overheads are not part of the standard formula unless a separately agreed feature expressly identifies them. Do not infer that unlisted costs are zero. The term operating profit in this Service means the displayed component-based result, not a claim of compliance with a particular accounting standard.
Orders and products are ordinarily shown before advertising. Advertising costs are not allocated to individual orders, products or campaigns to claim their individual profit. A positive order margin therefore does not establish that acquiring the order through advertising was profitable.
3. What the data-quality labels mean
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Confirmed | A value with the relevant factual source/confirmation is available for the calculation. It is not an independent audit or guarantee that the source cannot be corrected. |
| Estimated | A numerical value is based on an identified rule, rate or estimate. Saving a manual entry does not itself make it confirmed. |
| Preliminary | A numerical result is available but may change as the relevant period or source is finalised. It is not a substitute for a missing required expense. |
| Incomplete | Only part of a required component or period is known. |
| Missing | A necessary usable value is absent. |
| Excluded | A component does not apply to this particular result on an identified valid basis and scope. Ordinary Skip does not create that basis. |
| Stale | A previously obtained value/result exists but its required freshness is no longer established. |
Quality is assessed for the particular metric. Missing advertising can prevent operating profit after ads without making a properly calculated profit before ads incomplete. A period is not made complete merely because most of its orders or dates are covered.
A known zero is different from no value. Missing product costs, shipping or fees are not silently replaced by zero. A known subtotal is labelled incomplete and is not presented as full operating profit, minimum guaranteed profit or a conservative bound.
4. Changes, time and source limits
Saved changes can be waiting for a new calculation. In that state the previous published result remains readable with a notice and its own component quality. Current source status is shown separately from the data used by an older result. Opening a newer result can change the amount even for the same date.
The store's time zone and the selected period matter. A day with no new orders can still contain advertising costs or refunds. No imported events do not, by themselves, prove that the store made zero profit. A current day can be unfinished, and a comparison may require a completed comparable period.
Source delays, omitted records, unavailable historical items, exchange-rate limitations, manual assumptions and corrections can affect completeness. A plan's history allowance does not promise that every historical source exists. Disabling a source does not erase its historical cost or prove that the expense stopped occurring.
5. Financial signals are different kinds of observations
| Signal amount | What it establishes; what it does not |
|---|---|
| Negative order profit before ads | A negative result using that order's included components; not a guaranteed amount the Merchant can recover |
| Gap to a 10% order or 20% product reference margin | Difference from the reference used by the check; not necessarily an incurred loss or an achievable commercial target |
| Shipping cost above customer charge | Difference between recorded shipping cost and customer shipping payment; it may be an intended subsidy and does not itself prove an unprofitable order |
| Negative operating profit after ads | The store's negative result after included advertising; it does not assign all loss to ads or prove which campaign caused it |
| Refunds above baseline | Excess refunds over an eligible comparison; not the same amount of lost operating profit, particularly where cost reversals apply |
| Change in operating profit | Difference from a comparable period; profit can decline while remaining positive |
| Revenue affected by missing costs | Scale of records whose costs need completion; not measured profit loss |
| Source-delay signal | A data-availability/freshness condition; no financial loss amount is established |
For example, revenue of 1,000 and profit of 150 creates a gap of 50 to a 20% reference margin. That is not a loss of 50. Profit before ads of 100 and ad spend of 150 produces operating profit of −50, but does not prescribe an optimal ad budget. If profit before ads was already −20 and ads were 30, the same final −50 cannot be attributed entirely to advertising.
Amounts from different signals must not be added as total lost or recoverable profit. Signals can overlap at order, product and store level. Enabled checks, thresholds, plan scope and data eligibility also limit what is detected.
6. Review, resolution and your decisions
A recommended action identifies records or settings to inspect. It is not an instruction to raise prices, remove a discount, change shipping or reduce advertising. MarginPatrol does not automatically make those commercial changes.
Mark reviewed records a workflow action. Mute controls attention/notifications. Verify resolution checks whether the condition remains in eligible data. None of these actions proves that a user decision caused a financial improvement.
When a signal stops meeting its threshold, the actual current financial observation can still be negative or non-zero. Resolved describes the condition, not automatically zero loss, recovered profit or confirmed savings. If current data is insufficient, the last eligible observation is identified as such rather than treated as a new zero.
No detected urgent issue means that the enabled checks did not identify a qualifying condition in eligible data. It does not prove that all possible costs, risks or business problems are absent. Data Quality and a signal-free day can be useful information without a guarantee of overall financial health.
7. Reliance and professional review
Use the breakdown, period and source limitations when deciding how much weight to give a result. Verify significant transactions and assumptions before acting, and obtain suitable accounting, tax, legal or other professional advice when the decision requires it. Store owners remain responsible for their business decisions and statutory records; MarginPatrol remains responsible for its applicable contractual and legal duties.
Questions about a calculation: use the relevant result/context and contact support@marginpatrol.com without including customer contact details or credentials. Contractual remedies and disputes are addressed in the Terms of Service. This explanation does not replace those terms or make an inaccurate result legally harmless.