The Five Numbers Worth Looking at Every Month

A short, honest dashboard for owners who don't have time for a fifty-page report.

Most monthly financial packages are too long to be read and too late to be useful. By the time a forty-page report lands, the month it describes is ancient history. If you only have ten minutes, here are five numbers that tell you almost everything about how your business is actually doing.

1. Cash on hand, and runway. Not just the balance — the balance divided by your average monthly burn. "We have eleven weeks" is a far more useful sentence than "we have $340,000." Runway turns a number into a decision.

2. Gross margin. Revenue minus the direct cost of delivering it, as a percentage. This is the truest measure of whether your core business model works. When margin slips, it's usually the earliest signal that pricing, costs, or your mix of work has quietly drifted.

3. Revenue versus the same month last year. Comparing to last month is noisy; comparing to the same month a year ago strips out seasonality and shows the real trend. Up, flat, or down — you want to know which, and by how much.

4. Accounts receivable aging. How much you're owed, and how old it is. A growing "over 60 days" column is money you've earned but can't spend, and it's often the first sign a customer is in trouble.

5. Your single biggest controllable cost, tracked over time. For most companies that's payroll or materials. Watching your largest lever month over month catches drift long before it shows up in the bottom line.

That's it. Five numbers, one page, ten minutes. The point isn't to replace deeper analysis — it's to make sure nothing important goes unnoticed for ninety days. The best financial reporting isn't the most detailed. It's the kind you'll actually look at, that tells you the truth, and that arrives in time to do something about it.

If your current reports don't give you these five at a glance, that's worth fixing. The numbers already exist in your business. They just need to be put in front of you in a form a busy person can use.