Corporations bleeding money

Hi, I stopped playing about 2 years ago because I didn't have the time. I had a paid subscription and an empire of 7 or 8 profitable countries.
I want to play more casually now, not pay, and be content with two countries. I have 11 corporations in my new country that I know should be profitable - services, household prod, military serv, etc - and some that I've seen bring in lots of cash - plastics, other food prods, etc. Yet month after month, they all lose money (~.25B each). They have 100% hiring, ~100% prod.
Now, I know it's early in the process, but I don't remember having this problem when I started up 3 years ago. Which of the following is most likely leading to the consistent losses:
- Low salaries/efficiency = not enough product to make money?
- Sale/buying strategies - I keep setting them to more profitable time-based settings, and they keep reverting to the default. Is this because I'm new or because I'm not paying? The supply cost alone is often higher than the gross sales, nevermind salaries, because it starts buying at 108% and sometimes starts selling at barely over 100% in markets with huge supply deficits. Is this supposed to be good for a beginner?
- Low quality?
- Auto-buying upgrades. They are set to do this. Is this contributing to the raw materials used cost and making it seem as though it's using more supply cost than it actually is?

Thanks for any advice or help with this. I'm definitely a little rusty - hazy on the details.

Low salaries can definately effect profitability but I don't think it should play as a loss just not maximum profits.

Auto buying upgrades will not even register as a loss, only a loss of cash. This will lead to larger gains in the future so keep these on. Sometimes efficiency upgrades aren't the best, but as it is in your own country having higher skilled workers is best.

The other two things I would look at it is the welfare of your country. Improving your infrastructure will raise corp productivity. It could also be a supply issue, ANY Quality is the wrong quality, setting this number to anything other than that is better than any. As you can overpay for supplies that contribute little to the the final quality and you can pay little for supplies that contribute a lot however in a negative fashion. If this is your problem 150-170 is the way to go. Hope that helps. This is general though not specific as I didn't look at your country

Thank you, Drew. I've looked into a few of the things you mentioned. All my corps are targeted at 150 Q for supplies. I've ensured that my salaries are aimed at about 250 (the newer corps started at 250). My welfare index has leveled off around 78. I will build more infrastructure.
They're all still losing money, and I've noticed that the prices it says that they've paid for supplies are WAY above market price - some are almost 100% higher than market. Is that normal? It goes back to not being able to change my buying strategy.

Ok... well each welfare point has a different optimization level. A welfare level of 78 is like a third world country, which means you want salaries even lower than 250. I don't mean that to be offensive, I understand there is an intent to fix that and I'm positive you will so... I don't see a need to lower that in fact raise it as your country improves.

There is an issue with new corps though which is even more problematic in new countries. Before corps are fully upgraded they do not make significant amounts of money without incredibly low salaries. If your corps aren't even close to the 200 Q upgrades then I wouldn't worry about it. This is even worse when you don't have a good infrastructure to give these corps a boost. So honestly I wouldn't worry about it that much. But if your corps do get to the 200 Q Level and you are still struggling I recommend you re-post but also leave your World Name and Country in the post this way someone can look at it and help you directly. I personally enjoy helping as do players like Crafty but I've been busy and have a pending request as it is. Anyways your welcome any time. And Good Luck to you,

Oops is that normal? Ummm... at 150? At 150 it should be close to 150% of MV. The problem here could be a large stockpile of the supply before you changed your order strategies. But I can't be positive about this.

I pumped money into my infrastructure and health system, and the improvements were almost immediate. My welfare index is increasing quickly and my corporations are just about in the black now. It helps that my changes to the sell strategy are sticking somewhat now (they still move around on their own, but they're closer to where I wanted them). Thanks, again, Drew. Believe it or not, in my prime I was actually answering newbs' questions in this forum I do get the feeling there have been some behind-the-scenes changes since then.

You will be able to get your welfare index to about 125, corp welfare to 120 ish iam. You really need your corp welfare to be over 100 before you see them thrive. The country welfare and salaries are the main influences in this.

Until you get to grips with average supply quality then buy stuff at slightly higher than 150 I would recommend. Maybe 170.

You will find many differences from when you last played, be sure of that. One being that the trade strategies are pretty much useless. It's not worth asking for above market price increased by quality (from what I see). Rarely will you ever receive actual value of your product anyway. Asking for a lot more can result in nothing selling that month and the corp losing a couple of billion.