· 3 min read
A Labour Cost Ratio Means Nothing Until You Say What Is in It
$8,000 of wages on $25,000 of revenue is 32 %. Add $1,800 of employer contributions and the same week reads 39.2 % — a seven-point move with no change in staffing.
Camille Laurent
Finance writer at OneKitly
Personal finance and tax, property, company accounts and marketing metrics
Camille has spent over a decade turning money questions into plain-language guides — household budgets and tax first, then the same work on the numbers a business, a landlord or a marketing team lives by: covenants and coverage ratios, rental yields and notary fees, acquisition cost and lifetime value. Every figure in her articles is traced to the instrument that sets it, with the year it applies to.
Expertise
- Tax
- Personal finance
- Property
- Company accounts
- Marketing
Track record
- Writing since 2015
- 280 guides published on OneKitly
- 117 of them on finance
- 1067 sources cited
- from 336 distinct publishers
- Publishing on OneKitly since May 1, 2025
How Camille works
On tax and money topics, Camille works from institutional sources and the regulations themselves rather than from secondary write-ups. Amounts, thresholds and rates carry the period they apply to, and a figure that changes every year is tied to the year it belongs to instead of being left undated.
Articles by Camille Laurent
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Subjects
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Latest publications
· 3 min read
Biweekly and Semi-Monthly Pay Are Not the Same Thing
On $52,000 a year, a fortnightly cheque is $2,000 and a twice-monthly one is $2,166.67. The second looks 8.33 % better and pays exactly the same — because there are 26 of the first and 24 of the second.
· 3 min read
Depreciation Is the Only Expense That Never Leaves the Bank
A $24,000 van with a $4,000 residual over five years is $4,000 a year of expense and not one dollar of payment. Change the residual to zero and the charge becomes $4,800.
· 3 min read
The Gap Between Cash Margin and Net Margin Is the Signal
$500,000 of operating cash on $2m of sales is a 25 % cash margin against a 15 % net margin — ten points of comfort. The same company with $100,000 of cash reads 5 % against 15 %, and that is ten points of warning.
· 3 min read
The Treynor Ratio Is Only as Solid as Its Beta
Eight points of excess return over a beta of 1.2 gives 6.67. Change the beta to 0.6 and the same portfolio scores 13.33 — the number moves entirely on an estimate.
· 3 min read
Everyone Gets Ten Times Poorer and the Gini Does Not Move
Five incomes of 10,000 to 90,000 give a Gini of 0.38. Divide every one of them by ten and the answer is still 0.38 — the measure sees proportions and nothing else.
· 4 min read
Growing a Business That Earns Less Than Its Capital Costs
5 million of operating profit on 20 million of capital employed is a 25 % return. Against a cost of capital of 8 % that is a spread of 17 points; at 6 % it would be a spread of −2, and every extra euro invested would destroy value.
· 3 min read
One Balance Sheet, Three Ratios, and Only One of Them Has a Ceiling
500,000 of liabilities against 1,200,000 of assets is 41.7 % debt, 58.3 % equity and a debt-to-equity of 0.71. The third one runs to infinity as the equity vanishes; the first cannot pass 100 %.
· 3 min read
Operating Margin Is the Only One That Compares Two Companies
60,000 of operating income on 200,000 of revenue is 30 %. It sits between a gross margin that depends on accounting policy and a net margin that depends on debt and tax.
· 3 min read
The Gross Margin Is the Ceiling on Every Other Margin
200,000 of revenue less 120,000 of cost of sales is 80,000 of gross profit and a 40 % margin. Everything the business spends after that comes out of the 80,000 — and out of nowhere else.
· 3 min read
The Most Quoted Margin Is the Least Comparable One
50,000 of net income on 200,000 of revenue is 25 %. Two identical businesses can show 22.5 % and 15 % on the same operations, with the entire gap coming from how they are financed.
· 3 min read
Removing 20 % Is a Division, Not a Subtraction
A price of 120 including 20 % tax has a net of 100, not 96. Subtracting 20 % of the gross is the most common invoicing error there is, and it always errs the same way.
· 3 min read
Thirty Per Cent Profit, or Twenty-Three: It Depends What You Divide By
Buying at 100 and selling at 130 is a profit of 30 %, measured on the cost. Measured on the sale it is 23.08 % — the same trade, and a gap of nearly a quarter of the figure.
· 3 min read
A DSCR of 1.25 Is the Lender's Cushion, Not Yours
150,000 of net operating income against 120,000 of debt service is a coverage of 1.25 — the usual threshold. It also means a 20 % fall in income wipes the cover out entirely.
· 3 min read
Covering Your Interest Ten Times Says Nothing About Repaying the Loan
EBIT of 500,000 against interest of 50,000 is a cover of 10×. Refinance at a rate 3.6 times higher and the same business covers 2.78× — and neither figure has looked at the principal.
· 3 min read
Twelve Per Cent Cash-on-Cash, and Six Per Cent for the Same Building
6,000 of annual cash flow on 50,000 invested is 12 %. The same property bought outright yields 6 % on 250,000 — the doubling is the mortgage, and it is not in the ratio.
· 3 min read
Twenty Per Cent Return on Equity, Half of It Borrowed
Net income of 50,000 on equity of 250,000 is an ROE of 20 %. The same profit on 500,000 of equity is 10 % — the extra ten points came from the debt, not from the business.
· 3 min read
Seven Per Cent for Ten Years Almost Exactly Doubles
10,000 growing at 7 % a year becomes 19,671.51 after ten years — a rise of 96.7 %. The rule of 72 predicted 10.3 years to double, and it was right to within four months.
· 3 min read
The 12 That Becomes 44, and Nobody Took More Than Half
Making something for 12, selling it wholesale at a 40 % margin and letting the retailer take 55 % puts it on the shelf at 44.44 — 3.7 times its cost, with two reasonable-looking margins.
· 3 min read
Fifty-Five Days to Get Paid on Thirty-Day Terms
180,000 outstanding against 1,200,000 of annual sales is 54.75 days of collection and 6.67 turns a year. On thirty-day terms, that gap is a quarter of a million financed for free.
· 3 min read
Fifty Thousand of Working Capital, and None of It Spendable
Current assets of 150,000 less current liabilities of 100,000 gives working capital of 50,000 and a ratio of 1.5. Whether that is comfortable depends on what the 150,000 is made of.
· 3 min read
A 30 % Sell-Through Is Excellent or Alarming, and the Missing Word Is "When"
120 units sold out of 400 received is 30 %. Whether that is a success depends entirely on how long it took, and the rate on its own does not carry the answer.
· 3 min read
Cost of Goods Sold Is What Left the Shelf, Not What You Bought
Opening stock 40,000, purchases 120,000, closing stock 35,000 — the cost of goods sold is 125,000, and it is larger than the purchases because the shelf gave up 5,000 of what was already there.
· 3 min read
The Count Says 48,200 and the Books Say 50,000
A gap of 1,800 is a shrinkage rate of 3.6 %. The percentage is the number that travels; the absolute figure is the one that pays for the fix.