KPI dashboards and reporting
Owners of growing companies drown in data and starve for information. The accounting system has thousands of transactions, the CRM has a pipeline, the field software has job counts, and none of it answers the question you ask every Monday: are we on track. KPI dashboards and reporting choose the handful of numbers that run your business, connect them to the source systems, and put them in front of you weekly and monthly in a shape you can act on.
What you leave with
You see the eight to twelve numbers that run your company every week, and a monthly pack that explains the month in one page.
Who it is for
- Owners who get their numbers from a bookkeeper six weeks after month end
- Management teams with reports from three systems that disagree with each other
- Companies about to report to a board, a lender or a partner for the first time
What we deliver
- A KPI framework: the leading and lagging indicators for your business model, each with a definition, a source and an owner
- A weekly scorecard delivered automatically
- A monthly management pack: one-page summary, income statement, balance sheet, cash and KPI trends
- A dashboard connected to your accounting, CRM and operating systems
- A faster monthly close, with a checklist and a target date
- Training for the person who will maintain it
How it runs
01Choose
We work out which numbers predict next month's result and which merely describe last month's, then pick a short list of both.
02Connect
We connect the dashboard to the systems that hold the data and fix the data where it is inconsistent.
03Close faster
We redesign the monthly close so the pack lands within ten business days of month end.
04Run it
We present the first three monthly packs with you and then hand the routine to your team.
Engagement and fees
A Workshop of two to four weeks at $30K to $80K to design the KPI set, connect the dashboard and rebuild the close. Ongoing monthly reporting is included in a fractional CFO seat or an Advisory Retainer. Every engagement is scoped after a call and confirmed in writing. See consultations and fees.
Leading and lagging numbers
Revenue, gross margin and net profit are lagging indicators. They tell you what already happened and they arrive weeks late. Leads per week, quotes sent, close rate, jobs booked, average ticket, hours billed and backlog are leading indicators. They tell you what revenue will be before the invoices exist.
A good scorecard carries both. The lagging numbers keep the scorecard honest. The leading numbers give you time to act. An HVAC company that watches booked jobs per technician per week knows a soft month is coming three weeks before the income statement does, and can push marketing or pricing while it still matters.
The monthly pack
The pack is the one document that describes the month. Page one is the summary: revenue, margin, profit and cash against plan and against last year, with three sentences on what changed. Behind it sit the income statement by line of business, the balance sheet, the cash flow and the KPI trends over thirteen months.
It is written for the owner first and the lender or board second, in the same format every month so that patterns become visible. A pack that takes six weeks to produce is history. We target ten business days, which usually means fixing how bills, invoices and payroll are entered during the month rather than cleaned up after it.
Dashboards that survive contact with the business
Most dashboards die within a quarter because the data behind them is wrong and nobody trusts them. The dashboard work is mostly data work: agreeing definitions, fixing how jobs and customers are coded in each system, and reconciling the dashboard to the accounting system every month so the numbers match.
We keep the tooling plain. For most BC companies that means the reporting layer inside QuickBooks Online or Xero, the reports inside the CRM or field software, and one connected dashboard that pulls from both. We train one person on your team to maintain it, because a dashboard only we can update is a dependency, not an asset.
- Access to your accounting system, CRM and any operating software
- The reports you currently receive and the questions they fail to answer
- The one number you check when you want to know how the business is doing
Industries where we run this most
Questions about this service
How many KPIs should we track?
Eight to twelve for the owner, with a short list of three to five for each manager. Beyond that, attention spreads too thin and the numbers stop driving behaviour. Each KPI needs a definition, a source, an owner and a target, or it is just a statistic.
Which dashboard software do you recommend?
Whatever connects to your existing systems with the least maintenance. For most companies that is the built-in reporting in your accounting and CRM software plus one connected dashboard tool. We choose with you after we have seen your data. The method matters more than the product.
Our books are usually closed six weeks after month end. Can that change?
Yes. Late closes are almost always caused by bills, invoices and payroll being entered in a batch after the fact. Moving that work into the month, setting cut-off rules and running a close checklist usually brings the pack inside ten business days.
Will the numbers match what my CPA produces at year end?
They should, and we reconcile to make sure. Management reporting can present the business by line of business or location in ways the year-end statements do not, but the totals must tie. Where accrual adjustments differ, we document them so your CPA and your pack agree.
Start with a finance review.
Ninety minutes with Ali on your cash, margin and pricing. You leave with the four numbers to watch and the two or three moves that change them, whether or not we work together.