5 KPI dashboards every business should track

Most small businesses only need five dashboards to stay in control: cash, profitability, debtors and creditors, sales, and capacity. Each one answers a different question, from "can we pay the bills next month?" to "are we busy on the right work?". You don't need expensive software to start. A clean set of books and a monthly half hour are enough.

Key points

• Track cash first. Profitable businesses still fail when the bank account runs dry.
• Gross margin tells you whether your pricing works, and it often matters more than revenue.
• Debtor days show how long customers take to pay you, and it's usually the easiest KPI to improve.
• Keep each dashboard to a handful of numbers you'll actually act on.
• Review them monthly, against the same period last year and against your budget.

Before you start: get the numbers right

A dashboard is only as reliable as the bookkeeping behind it. If transactions are months behind or sitting in a suspense account, the figures will mislead you. Aim to have your books reconciled within a couple of weeks of each month end. Up-to-date bookkeeping is the foundation for everything below.

Keep each dashboard short. Five to seven numbers is plenty. If a metric never changes what you do, drop it.

1. The cash dashboard

This is the one to check most often, weekly if cash is tight. It answers one question: how long can we keep going, and what's coming?

What to include:

• Bank balance today.
• Cash in and cash out for the month.
• Money set aside for VAT, PAYE and Corporation Tax.
• A rolling 13-week cash flow forecast.
• Cash runway.

Cash runway = available cash ÷ average monthly net cash outflow

If you have £60,000 in the bank and you're spending £15,000 a month more than comes in, your runway is four months. If cash is coming in faster than it goes out, runway isn't a concern, but the forecast still matters for timing big payments.

A useful habit is to move tax money into a separate account as you go. That way the "available cash" figure is honest and a VAT bill never comes as a surprise.

2. The profitability dashboard

Revenue is the number everyone watches, but profit is what pays the bills. This dashboard shows whether each pound of sales is actually earning its keep.

What to include:

• Revenue for the month and year to date.
• Gross profit and gross margin.
• Overheads.
• Net profit and net margin.
• Figures against budget and against last year.

Gross margin = (revenue − cost of sales) ÷ revenue × 100

Net margin = net profit ÷ revenue × 100

Say you sell £100,000 of work in a quarter and the direct costs (materials, subcontractors, the staff who deliver the work) come to £60,000. Gross profit is £40,000 and gross margin is 40%. If overheads are £25,000, net profit is £15,000 and net margin is 15%.

Watch the trend. A margin slipping from 40% to 35% over a year often points to costs rising faster than prices. That's usually a pricing problem, which we cover in how to price your services for maximum profit.

3. The debtors and creditors dashboard

This shows how quickly cash moves through the business. Many profitable businesses run short of cash simply because customers pay slowly.

What to include:

• Total owed by customers, split by age (current, 30, 60, 90+ days).
• Debtor days.
• Total you owe suppliers.
• Creditor days.
• Your largest overdue invoices, by name.

Debtor days = trade debtors ÷ annual credit sales × 365

If customers owe you £50,000 and your annual credit sales are £400,000, debtor days are about 46. If your terms are 30 days, customers are paying more than two weeks late on average.

Bringing that down to 30 days would free up roughly £17,000 of cash (16 days of sales at around £1,100 a day). That's cash you've already earned and don't need to borrow.

Creditor days works the same way, using what you owe suppliers and your annual purchases. Paying suppliers on time protects relationships, but there's no reason to pay much earlier than you need to.

4. The sales and customers dashboard

This dashboard looks forward. The profit and cash dashboards tell you what has happened; this one gives you early warning of what's coming.

What to include:

• New enquiries or leads.
• Conversion rate.
• Average order or project value.
• Value of the pipeline or order book.
• Share of revenue from your largest customer.

Conversion rate = sales won ÷ enquiries × 100

Customer concentration = revenue from largest customer ÷ total revenue × 100

If one customer provides 40% of your revenue, losing them would be serious. There's no fixed safe level, but it's worth knowing the number and reviewing it as you grow.

If enquiries fall for two or three months in a row, you have time to act before it hits revenue. That's the point of tracking them.

5. The capacity and people dashboard

For service businesses in particular, time is the stock you're selling. This dashboard shows whether you're using it well.

What to include:

• Utilisation: billable hours as a share of available hours.
• Revenue per employee or per full-time equivalent.
• Staff costs as a share of revenue.
• Work in progress not yet invoiced.
• Overtime or subcontractor spend.

Utilisation = billable hours ÷ available hours × 100

If a team member has 1,600 available hours a year and bills 1,120, utilisation is 70%. Nobody hits 100%, because admin, training and sales take time too. But if utilisation drops while the team feels busy, time is leaking somewhere, often into work that isn't being charged for.

Putting it together

Start with cash and profitability. Add the others once those two become a habit.

Frequently asked questions

What software do I need for KPI dashboards?

Your bookkeeping software is the starting point. Most cloud accounting packages include basic reports for cash, profit and aged debt. For the rest, a simple spreadsheet updated monthly works well. Dedicated dashboard tools can pull everything together automatically, but they only help once the underlying books are accurate and up to date. Get the records right first.

How often should I review my KPIs?

Cash and overdue invoices weekly, especially if things are tight. Profitability, sales and capacity monthly, once the books for the month are closed. Once a quarter, step back and compare the trends with your budget and last year. The discipline of a regular slot in the diary matters more than the exact frequency.

What's a good gross margin?

It depends heavily on your sector. A consultancy might run at a much higher gross margin than a builder or a wholesaler, because its direct costs are mainly people's time. Comparing yourself with last year and with your budget is more useful than a general benchmark. A falling margin is a warning sign whatever your sector.

How Foundry can help

Our CFO services give you the reporting and the monthly conversation a finance director would, without the full-time cost. We can set up dashboards around your business and help you act on what they show. To talk it through, book a free consultation.

This article is general guidance based on the rules for the 2026/27 tax year and isn't personal advice. Speak to us before acting on it.