Entrepreneurs like to keep moving and make decisions quickly.

The successful ones have the intel from an online accounting software to make quick but well informed decisions. How can they get that intel so fast? Don’t they have to wait for their accountant to prepare a set of financial statements and business metrics and explain it to them first?

When my son was small, he was far too busy to sit down and eat. I would prepare bite sized chunks of food and literally fire them into his mouth as he flashed past me during his busy day.

As a business owner, I want the same treatment from my support team. Not with food 🙂 , but with business metrics and finance info. Here’s what I want to knowand when I want to know it, in bite sized chunks, preferably by text or email:

Every day:
Bank Balance
Sales Yesterday
No of new customers yesterday
No of new trials yesterday

Weekly:
Top 3 Quotes to follow up
Total and Top 3 Who we owe and how much
Total and Top 3 Who owes us and how much
No of new customers last week
Any customers lost last week

Monthly:
Profit figure and margin, up or down from last month, by how much
Number of new customers, up or down from last month
Number of lost customers, up or down from last month
Debtor Days, up or down
Sales for the month up or down

Vat time (every two months for us in Ireland):
Bank Balance
Vat we owe

A steady diet of information nuggets strengthens a business decision making metabolism.

Most business owners are paying for this information to be prepared, but many never receive it in manageable, timely chunks. Personally I found the once a year summons to my accountant’s office to “call in and discuss my accounts” was both not enough and too much to digest in one meal.

But if you have any one or all of these resources at your disposal: cloud accounting software, a bookkeeper, an accountant, employees, then a little process tweaking should get you at least some of what you need when you need it.

In a later email, we will explain what you can do in your daily bookkeeping routine to ensure you are getting quality, organic information rather than high fructose corn syrup.

Meanwhile, we would love to hear what key stats other business owners track either formally or informally.

 

Kind regards,

Aileen @ SortMyBooks