A reproducible SQL investigation into why stronger sales do not always produce equally strong profit. The same source records power the Excel dashboard.
Independent portfolio work · 576 fictional monthly records · complete 2024–2025 sample · USD.
Where does sales growth turn into profit, and where does it fall short?
Five readable queries, matching-year comparisons, integer-cent source amounts, and independent reconciliation checks.
Download the source CSV, SQLite schema, queries, Python runner and result tables. No database server or paid tools required.
Full-year 2025 vs 2024 · 576 fictional monthly records. Download the linked results to inspect the exact figures.
The order-count contribution is $782,979.78; revenue per order contributes $144,138.98. Together they reconcile to $927,118.76 of growth.
Separate order volume from revenue per order; the latter combines price, discounts, basket size and mix.
Furniture margin falls about 4.0 percentage points to 19.7%, the largest category decline. Other category margins change only slightly.
Prioritize a Furniture cost, discount and mix review. Within-category effects exclude shifts in category revenue mix.
West reaches 88.3% of its annual revenue plan, a $312,710.96 shortfall—the largest regional gap in the sample.
Check West’s plan assumptions and segment performance before choosing an intervention.
Each answer links to the exact query and its downloadable results. Growth comparisons use the same full-year scope.
Revenue grew 12.7%, but gross profit grew 7.9%. Start by separating business growth from profitability.
Higher order count contributes about $783K and higher revenue per order contributes $144K to the $927K revenue increase.
Revenue growth adds about $302K to gross profit. Margin pressure offsets $115K, leaving a $187K increase.
Furniture margin falls to 19.7%, the largest category decline. Category mix still matters: within-category effects are not the same as the aggregate margin effect.
West has the largest revenue shortfall. Review assumptions, discounts, costs and product mix before assigning a business cause.
The CSV is exported from the reviewed Excel source table. The SQL totals match its $8,242,432.31 revenue and $2,573,848.19 gross profit for 2025.
Validation covers the full monthly grain, duplicate rejection, impossible discounts, independent totals, missing prior-year handling and both driver reconciliations.
No customer or transaction-level conclusions are supported by these monthly records. The contributions explain arithmetic, not causality. 2024 comparisons stay unavailable because 2023 is absent.
Discuss a SQL investigation with agreed measures, traceable calculations and a concise findings readout.