SG&A / sales

SG&A ratio: overhead as a share of revenue

One of the 64 measures in Stock Scorer, under Quality — How much of the revenue is really kept — and what did it take to earn it?

How it is worked out

The share of every sale spent on selling it and running the company, before research and before the cost of the goods themselves. Where a filer tags only a general and administrative line, that narrower figure is what is read, and it flatters.

How to read it

lower is better; a tenth of revenue reads as lean, three fifths as a cost base the sales do not yet carry

Which figures it needs

Computed from 2 figures taken from the filing:

• selling_admin
• revenue

The XBRL tags behind it

These are the element names looked for in a filing, in order. The first one a company reports is the one used, and the company page names which it was — so any figure here can be checked against the filing it came from.

• SellingGeneralAndAdministrativeExpense
• GeneralAndAdministrativeExpense
• SellingAndMarketingExpense
• OtherSellingGeneralAndAdministrativeExpense
• RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax
• Revenues
• RevenueFromContractWithCustomerIncludingAssessedTax
• SalesRevenueNet
• SalesRevenueServicesNet
• RevenueFromContractsWithCustomers
• Revenue

Whether it counts

This measure is not counted by default. It can be added to Quality on the dashboard, and it then takes its share of that dimension.