G&A stands for general and administrative expenses — the costs of running the business as a whole that are not tied to producing what you sell or to winning a sale. It appears below gross profit as part of operating expenses.
A usable test: G&A is what the business would still cost if you stopped making the product tomorrow but kept the company alive.
Typical G&A items: office rent and utilities · administrative and executive salaries and benefits · accounting, legal and consulting fees · business insurance · office supplies and software subscriptions · bank and payment fees · depreciation on office equipment · licences, dues and registrations.
The distinction that trips people up:
| Term | What it covers | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
| COGS | Costs directly tied to producing what you sell | Above gross profit |
| G&A | Overhead of running the company as a whole | Below gross profit, inside operating expenses |
| SG&A | Selling costs plus G&A, reported together | Below gross profit — one combined line on many statements |
| Operating expenses | The broad bucket: selling, G&A and R&D | Gross profit minus opex is operating income |
SG&A is not a different kind of cost from G&A — it is a wider bucket that contains it. Whether a statement splits selling from general and administrative is a presentation choice.
The three-question test. Is the cost tied to making the product or delivering the service? Then it is COGS. Tied to winning or closing a sale? A selling cost. Tied to financing (interest, loan fees)? A financing cost, not operating. If all three answers are no, it is almost certainly G&A.
What is NOT G&A: cost of goods sold and direct labour, sales commissions and advertising, interest, and income tax.
The same cost can land in different categories depending on use. Office rent is G&A; factory rent is usually COGS; showroom rent is usually a selling cost. Administrative and executive salaries are G&A; production wages are COGS; sales-team pay is a selling cost. One payroll can land in three places on the income statement.
Why it matters: lenders and investors read the G&A line as a proxy for overhead relative to output, so misclassification makes gross margin look better than it is and overhead look worse. It also affects pricing, because overhead has to be recovered on top of direct costs. Benchmark ratios for G&A as a percentage of revenue vary widely by industry and stage — treat any single quoted figure with suspicion unless it names its source and cohort.
How to track it in ExpenseBot: receipts and invoices are categorised as they are captured from Gmail or uploaded, rows support tags and custom columns, and profit-and-loss views can be broken down by tag. There is no built-in report named "G&A" — you apply a G&A convention to the category and tag system. A workable convention is a small closed set applied every time: rent & utilities · insurance · professional fees · software & subscriptions · office supplies · bank & payment fees · licences & dues · admin salaries. Eight categories that never change beat thirty that drift.
Many G&A items map onto named tax-return lines (insurance, legal and professional services, office expense, rent, utilities on the US Schedule C; equivalents on the Canadian Form T2125). Keeping categories clean during the year makes the tax mapping a translation rather than a reconstruction.
Estimates — confirm with your tax professional. Classification conventions vary by industry and by the standard your statements are prepared under.
See also: G&A meaning explained, Profit and loss for small business, Schedule C expense guide.