5 numbers to check every week (no accounting degree needed)

Plenty of small business owners run on instinct. The business feels busy, so it must be going well, or it feels slow, so something must be wrong. Instinct is useful, but a few simple numbers checked at the same time every week tell you much more, and you do not need to be an accountant to track them. Here are five worth watching, how to find each one, and what to do with them.

First, a ground rule

Pick a fixed day and time, thirty minutes at most, and look at the same numbers in the same order every week. The habit matters more than the tool. A single spreadsheet with one row per week is enough. Your accountant or bookkeeper remains the right person for taxes and official reporting. This is about running the business week to week.

1. Cash available

What it is: the money you actually have today, across your business accounts.

Where to find it: your bank balance. Next to it, write down what you know must be paid in the next thirty days, such as payroll, rent, supplier bills, and loan payments.

Why it matters: a profitable-looking business can still run short of cash at the wrong moment. Seeing the gap early gives you time to act.

2. Money owed to you

What it is: invoices you have sent that have not been paid yet.

Where to find it: your invoicing tool or a simple list. Note the total, and how long each invoice has been waiting.

Why it matters: unpaid invoices are work you have already done. The older they get, the harder they are to collect, so this number tells you who to call this week.

3. New sales activity

What it is: how many quotes or proposals you sent this week, and how many turned into jobs.

Where to find it: your quote list. If you do not have one yet, our post on following up on quotes without losing sales shows how to build it.

Why it matters: sales activity this week shapes revenue weeks from now. A quiet week is an early warning you can act on while there is still time.

4. Revenue compared with before

What it is: what you billed or collected this month so far, compared with the same point last month, or the same month last year if your business is seasonal.

Where to find it: your invoicing or accounting tool.

Why it matters: a number alone says little. A comparison shows direction: growing, flat, or slipping.

5. What is left on each job

What it is: the margin on your work. Take the price of a job, subtract the direct costs of doing it, such as materials, subcontractors, and the labor hours it took, and see what remains. Divide what remains by the price to get a percentage.

Where to find it: pick the jobs you finished this week and do the math on each one, or on a typical one for each service.

Why it matters: busy is not the same as profitable. A service that keeps you running all week but leaves very little behind is worth knowing about.

A simple way to track them

Build one sheet with these columns: week, cash available, cash due in 30 days, money owed to you, quotes sent, quotes won, revenue this month, and margin on finished jobs. Fill in one row every week. After a month or two, the pattern is easy to see, and so are the surprises.

Three questions to ask each week

1. What changed since last week? Which of the five moved the most, and why?
2. What needs action now? An overdue invoice to chase, a slow sales week to respond to, a cash gap to plan for.
3. What is one thing to change next week? Keep it to one, so it actually happens.

Common mistakes

• Tracking too much. Five numbers you check beat twenty you ignore.
• Checking irregularly. The value comes from comparing week after week.
• Keeping the numbers only in your head. Write them down, and share them with anyone who helps run the business.
• Waiting for perfect data. Rough numbers reviewed weekly beat precise numbers reviewed once a year.

Where this leads

Once the numbers are on one page, it becomes much easier to decide what to fix first, what to delegate, and what to automate. Documenting how you collect each number is a good first process to write down, and our post on how to document your business processes gives you a template to do it.

When to get help

If you are not sure which numbers matter most for your kind of business, or the numbers show a problem you cannot place, an outside view helps. Turning a business into something you can measure and manage is part of our consulting for Massachusetts small businesses.

Keep reading

• How to follow up on quotes without losing sales
• How to document your business processes: a simple template
• Small business consulting in Massachusetts