This page has an overview of a Flash Report and suggested KPI's (Key Performance Indicators).

The Flash Report is defined as a periodic snapshot of key financial indicators. There is an art to creating a flash report or dashboard report.. It should cover a one week period.. The whole process should be based on the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) and should not take any longer than 30 minutes to prepare.. If it takes any longer than that, then the flash report is too detailed and will be too difficult to maintain.

There are 3 sections to the flash report: Cash, People and Profitability.

Flash Reports are a rough measure of change.. They are not meant to be 100% accurate.. If the data is 80-90% accurate, it will be enough to manage the business..  Flash reports should be done on a weekly basis and reviewed at the same time each week..  Examples of information in each section:

Cash

Bank balance

AR over 30

Cash reserve

AP balance

Bookings

People

Vacation/ time off requests

Issues/ opportunities

New hire updates

Tenure awards/ recognition

Profitability

Utilization rate

Project margin

Pipeline value

Weekly cost analysis


There are dozens of additional KPI's that can be used.  Here is a list of suggested KPI's to consider.  (Credit a great resources CEO Tools):

·       Sales per employee

·       Sales per dollar of salary

·       Inbound calls and conversion rate on inbound calls

·       Sales per foot traffic

·       Number of sales per day

·       Average sale

·       Number of pounds shipped

·       Order backlog

·       Work in progress

·       Number of bids submitted versus number of bids converted

·       Accounts Receivable

·       Cash Flow

·       Customer Satisfaction

·       Dollars per Rep

·       Employee Turnover

·       Employee Morale

·       Expenses < x%

·       Gross Margins

·       Gross Profit per Day

·       Inventories

·       Staff Turnover

·       Profit to Sales

·       Forward Sales (orders held)

·       Sales per employee

·       Sales per sales person

·       Largest item of expense to sales

·       Percent of certain sales to the total (dominant product, dominant customer/type, dominant distribution channel, emerging segment [Internet]),

·       Occupancy ratios,

·       Machine loading ratios

·       Number of franchise openings to budget

·       Membership numbers to budget

·       Gross contribution of new or special segment/division to budget

·       Cash reserves by burn rate in months

·       Number of capital items sold

·       Average sale value

·       Cost per person hour

·       Ratio of in-house labor to out sourced labor,

·       Discard or waste ratio

·       Stock holding to budget or in weeks of production

·       CEO coverage of top customers

·       Number of days to produce accounts

·       Ratio of billable to paid hours

·       Invoice fill rate versus standard (95%)

·       Machine up-time versus benchmark

·       # of Complaints

·       Monthly Sales or Trailing Twelve Months Sales

·       Accounts Receivable

·       Backlog

·       Net Cash Flow

·       Customer Satisfaction (time, price)

·       Market share

·       Customer acquisition

·       # of Active Customers

·       Dollars per Rep

·       Expenses <   %

·       Gross Margins %

·       Gross Profit per Day

·       Inventory

·       Labor Costs to Sales

·       New Orders booked

·       Monthly Overhead

·       Quarterly Profit

·       Sales to Plan

·       Sales to Prior Year

·       Unit Sales

·       Book to bill ratio (new bookings to billed out orders (shipped))

·       10 wk. booking average

·       Income per employee

·       12 mo. rolling return on assets

·       month end inventory

·       Backlog

·       New accounts

·       New stores opened

·       Same store sales (yr to yr.)

·       Number of active customers

·       $ vol. of quotes

·       % of success on bids

·       Labor % of product cost

·       Write downs

·       Working capital ‑ $'s & ratios

·       Line of credit drawn

·       A/R over 60 days and average days

·       New product ideas last month

·       Overseas orders last month

·       Revenue per inquiry

·       R&D as % of sales from new products

·       New product introductions v. Competitors

·       Time to develop new generation of products

·       Average time to market

·       Quality measures

·       Process cost - per run, per unit

·       Order ship cycle times

·       Days supply of finished inventory

·       Training as % of sales

·       Customer retention %