Stealing a question from the Ask the Devs thread here:



It's a lot more like net profit than the others, since it indicates how much money you have to spend on things for your character.

Granted, the text says you're then supposed to spend half of that on your cost-of-living, and the examples of things that are "cost of living" for a merchant (tariffs) or businesswoman (wages of employees) include stuff that would be paid for out of revenue or gross profit. But the consequences of failing to do so are described primarily as social, rather than...