Turnover
Turnover is the sum of all deliveries and services invoiced in a period, excluding VAT; it says nothing about whether the money came in and nothing about what is left of it.
Definition
Several thresholds hang on it: VAT liability from CHF 100,000, the duty to keep books from CHF 500,000, commercial register registration for sole proprietorships from CHF 100,000. Knowing your turnover continuously is therefore not a statistic but the monitoring of an obligation.
For steering the business it is the weakest of the usual figures. A business can double its turnover and lose money doing it — which happens regularly in growing trading businesses.
What the software must be able to do
What helps is a turnover report by month, customer, product group and staff member — plus a warning when one of the statutory thresholds comes closer. Almost no program can do the latter, although it would be the most valuable part.
Checked Aug 2026
More terms under Bookkeeping and retention: Accrual principle Accrued liabilities Annual accounts Association accounting Balance sheet Balance sheet total Book value Break-even point Business assets Business expenses Cash book Cash flow statement Cash receipts Contribution margin Cost centre Current assets Debit and credit Depreciation Double-entry bookkeeping Duty to keep accounts EBIT EBITDA Equity Equity ratio Financial year Fixed assets Fixed costs Foreign currency General ledger Gross profit Hidden reserves Income statement Inventory count Journal Journal entry Liabilities Liquidity Loss carry-forward Membership dues Net profit Opening balance sheet Overheads Pass-through item Prepaid expenses Provision Record-keeping ordinance Reserves Retained profit Simple accounts Swiss SME chart of accounts Tamper resistance Value adjustment Variable costs Volunteer-run structure Voucher Year-end closing modules