What it is
The income statement shows how much the hotel earned or lost in a period. Containn calculates it from the general ledger: the active pólizas (journal entries) of that period, the same ones that feed the trial balance and the files for the SAT, Mexico's tax authority. There is no separate spreadsheet that someone maintains on the side.
Each account falls into its category by the first digit of its SAT grouping code (código agrupador):
| First digit | Category on screen | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Ingresos (revenue) | Credits minus debits |
| 5 | Costos (cost of sales) | Debits minus credits |
| 6 | Gastos de operación (operating expenses) | Debits minus credits |
| 7 | Resultado integral de financiamiento (net financing result) | Debits minus credits |
Below come Utilidad bruta (gross profit: revenue minus costs), Utilidad de operación (operating income: minus operating expenses) and Utilidad neta (net income: minus the net financing result), which shows in green for a profit and red for a loss. A debit-balance account inside revenue, such as “Descuentos y cortesías” (discounts and comps), subtracts on its own: it shows with a negative sign.
The basis is accrual: revenue is recognized when the night or the purchase is charged to the guest's account, not when it is collected. That is why it does not match collections, and it shouldn't (accrual versus cash).
When to use it
- At each month end, to review the result before you close the month.
- Any time, to see how the year is going.
- To compare months on the same basis: all of them come from the same ledger.
Step by step
- Go to Containn → Estados financieros (financial statements).
- Choose the Año (year) and the Mes (month).
- Under Periodo, choose Solo el mes (month only) or Del año a la fecha (year to date: January 1 through the last day of the selected month).
- Read each category: it lists its accounts with number, name and amount, plus its total. An account with no activity in the period does not appear.
- To trace an amount, open the trial balance for the same period and click the account: its account ledger opens.
What can go wrong
- “No hay movimientos contables en ese periodo” (no accounting activity in that period). Pólizas are created when the business day is signed. If days are signed and nothing shows, see why a póliza is not generated. The notice “Falta para que el día firmado se convierta en póliza” at the top of the screen tells you what is missing.
- A day is missing. An unsigned day has no póliza and is not included. That is deliberate: the books never get ahead of operations.
- Gross profit equals revenue. Your chart of accounts has no cost accounts; the base chart does not include them. Your accountant adds them with a grouping code that starts with 5 (adding your own account).
- ISR (income tax) or PTU (employee profit sharing) show inside operating expenses. There is no separate line for income taxes: everything with a grouping code that starts with 6 is presented as an operating expense.
- After the fiscal year is closed, the full year shows no activity and December shows figures that are not the month's. The closing póliza is dated December 31, brings the income and expense accounts to zero, and the income statement includes it. The result of a closed year is shown in Cierre de mes (month close), in the fiscal-year block (year-end close).
The statement is produced for the company that keeps the chart of accounts: if it runs several properties in Containn, they are presented together. There is no group consolidation today.