Which numbers should an owner see every week?
An owner needs a short weekly view of cash, sales, delivery, customers and people. Fewer numbers, read every week, beat a long report read once a quarter.
Most owners need about five or six numbers each week, on one page, covering cash, sales, delivery, customers and people. Anything more and the page stops being read.
The aim is not to measure everything. It is to notice a problem while it is still small, and to trust the business enough to step back from the daily checking.
What the page should cover
- Cash. What is in the bank, what is due in and what must go out in the coming weeks.
- Sales. New enquiries, quotes sent and orders won, compared with the same week before.
- Delivery. Work in progress, work late and work waiting on the customer or on you.
- Customers. Complaints, cancellations and the customers who have gone quiet.
- People. Capacity for the weeks ahead, absences and open roles.
For a property or a workspace, swap in the equivalents: occupancy, rent collected, maintenance requests open and income still owed.
Choose numbers that lead, not only numbers that report
Profit tells you how last quarter went. Enquiries, quotes and late jobs tell you how next month will go. Keep at least half of the page for numbers that move early, so that you can still change the outcome.
Give every number an owner and a trigger
A number nobody owns is decoration. For each one, write down who updates it, where the data comes from and what level makes you act. “If late jobs go above what the team can clear in a week, we meet on Monday.” Without a trigger, people read the page and do nothing.
Keep the routine simple
- Use the data you already have, in a spreadsheet or the tool you use today. Do not wait for new software.
- Produce the page on the same day each week, and spend no more than a few minutes reading it.
- Review the list every few months. Drop numbers that never led to a decision.
If the numbers are hard to get, that is useful information too. It usually points to a process nobody owns, which is a better place to start than a dashboard. See also why businesses become dependent on their founders.