Think big picture: You can either track at a high macro level or break down your primary activities into sub-categories. As with the sales category, don’t get carried away with tracking too many activities on your dashboard report. You are primarily trying to use your dashboard report to act like an alarm system or radar. The report is intended to alert you that your atten- tion is needed and, ideally, suggest which area(s) you need to investigate further. The main thing you need to know is that enemy planes are approaching. Sure, if practical, it would be nice to also know the distance, direction, altitude and how many. Ideally, you’d also like to know what kind of planes, but at some point, the effort (and perhaps cost) required for that level of detail ren- ders the cost/benefit ratio unacceptable. Production is oſten regarded as the least important element of a dashboard re- port because the data is more internal in nature. Most of us are probably already intimately aware of our workload and related information because of our need for scheduling work and similar necessities. But we don’t want to have either extreme. Who wants to have too many crews, technicians and/or service vehicles sitting around without enough work or be short-handed and risk upsetting our customers? If any of this scheduling stuff sounds familiar, you’re probably very well acquainted with the never-ending juggling act known as scheduling. While dashboard reports can be helpful here, you’ll likely need additional, more detailed production and scheduling- type reports and data. WWW.ALOA.ORG Finance Some would argue that keeping track of the financial stuff is the most important, and even more important than sales data. For- tunately, you can track both. So, what kind of data or numbers are we talking about for the financial section of our dashboard report? Fundamentally, this section is all about cash but, of necessity, must include areas that indirectly relate to our cash. Think in terms of three categories: cash, accounts receivable (A/R) and accounts payable (A/P). If applicable, we can also include inventory and possibly outstanding purchases not yet invoiced to us. Let’s take a closer look at these. You’ve likely heard the expression “Cash is King.” If you run out of cash, the fat lady will indeed sing, and the game is over for your business. In a perfect world, you’d transact business only in cash and thus not have to extend credit. In this fantasy scenario, all the planets in your commercial universe would be perfectly aligned, as long as you generated sufficient busi- ness volume and your profit margin was satisfactory. In your Utopia world of all-cash sales, where customers never write a bad check, we can almost see the smiling Hobbits playing their magic flutes and little fluffy bunny rabbits frolicking in the grass field as you dance gracefully (well, maybe not so grace- fully) while singing in the meadow filled with sheep. OK, snap out of it and return to the real world! Oh, and better wash that sheep dung off your shoes. We need to keep track of our cash on a daily basis. This in- cludes what’s in your business checkbook and possibly a line of credit. But remember: We can make our cash balance look FEBRUARY 2021 KEYNOTES 17
