KPI Dashboards: Tips & Guide for Small Businesses

“If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.“

~ B.C. Forbes

How to Create a Financial Dashboard

Creating financial KPI dashboards involves several detailed steps, ensuring you have a comprehensive tool for monitoring your business's financial health, and is an important step toward better financial management in small businesses. It requires careful selection of metrics and software, thoughtful design for ease of use, and regular review and update practices. With the right approach, a financial dashboard can provide invaluable insights, driving informed decision-making and contributing to business growth.

Identify Business Goals and Metrics:

• Determine what financial aspects are most important for your business. This could include cash flow, revenue growth, expenses, or profitability.
• Choose specific, measurable metrics that align with these goals.

Selecting the Right Software:

• Use tools like Visme, Klipfolio, or Tableau for your KPI dashboards, which offer customizable dashboard templates and various visualization options.
• Consider the complexity of your needs. A simple tool might suffice for fewer KPIs, while a more sophisticated tool is better for extensive data tracking.

Data Collection and Integration:

• Identify the data sources for your KPIs. This could be accounting software, CRM systems, or manual records.
• Be sure to verify that your chosen software can integrate with these data sources for automated data collection.

Designing the Dashboard:

• Choose a template or design your dashboard from scratch. Prioritize clarity and ease of understanding.
• Use visual elements like charts and graphs to represent different KPIs. For example, use bar graphs for revenue comparison and line graphs for trend analysis.

Business Scenario: A small online retail business wants to increase its profitability. The business owner could create KPI dashboards focusing on key metrics like monthly sales, cost of goods sold, operating expenses, and net profit. By regularly reviewing these metrics, the owner can quickly identify trends, such as an increase in expenses or fluctuations in sales, and take timely actions to optimize profitability.

Formulas and Equations:

• Net Profit: Revenue – Expenses
• Gross Profit Margin: (Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold) / Revenue * 100

Level of Difficulty to Implement:

Beginner to Intermediate: The difficulty level depends on the software chosen and the complexity of your business's financial structure. With user-friendly tools like Visme or Klipfolio, setting up a basic financial dashboard can be relatively straightforward, even for those with limited technical expertise.

Choosing the Right KPIs for Your Dashboard

Align with Business Objectives: Your KPIs should directly reflect your business goals. For instance, if increasing cash flow is a priority, relevant KPIs might include cash flow forecast, accounts receivable turnover, and days sales outstanding.

Consider Business Size and Industry: Tailor your KPIs to your business size and industry specifics. A small retail business might focus on inventory turnover, while a service-based business could prioritize billable hours.

Balance Between Different Types of KPIs: Include a mix of leading indicators (like new leads or customer engagement levels) and lagging indicators (like quarterly sales or net profit margin).

Examples of KPIs:

• Gross Profit Margin: (Total Revenue – Cost of Goods Sold) / Total Revenue * 100
• Current Ratio: Current Assets / Current Liabilities

Business Scenario: A small consulting firm might choose KPI dashboards to view billable hours (to measure productivity), client acquisition cost (to gauge marketing efficiency), and net profit margin (to assess overall profitability). Regular monitoring of these KPIs can help the firm adjust its operations, like optimizing marketing strategies or reassessing its pricing model.

Level of Difficulty:

Intermediate: Selecting the right KPIs requires a good understanding of your business goals and the ability to translate these into measurable metrics. It can be more challenging than setting up the dashboard itself, as it requires in-depth business analysis.

Designing the Dashboard

• Organize KPIs logically, grouping related metrics together. For example, place all sales-related KPIs in one section.
• Use a clean, uncluttered layout to enhance readability.
• Choose appropriate charts for different types of data. Use bar charts for comparisons, line charts for trends, and pie charts for proportions.
• Use color coding to differentiate between different data sets or to highlight key information.
• Tailor the dashboard to meet the specific needs of your business. For example, if cash flow is a critical concern, make those KPIs most prominent.
• Allow for some level of customization, like filtering data by different time periods or departments.

Tools and Software for Dashboard Design

• Use dashboard software like Visme, Klipfolio, or Tableau for their user-friendly interfaces and customization options.
• These tools offer templates and drag-and-drop features, making it easier to design a dashboard without extensive technical skills.

Business Scenario: a small e-commerce business. The owner could design a KPI dashboard that prominently displays daily sales, inventory levels, and website traffic. This would provide quick insights into sales performance, stock management, and online engagement, which are essential for making timely business decisions.

Level of Difficulty to Implement:

Intermediate to Advanced: Depending on the complexity of the dashboard and the software used. Basic dashboards can be created with minimal technical skills using user-friendly software, but more complex dashboards might require advanced knowledge of data visualization and software capabilities.

Regular Review and Update of the Dashboard

• The frequency of reviewing your dashboard should align with your business operations and the nature of the KPIs. For example, daily sales data might require daily monitoring, while quarterly financial goals could be reviewed monthly.
• Regular reviews allow for timely adjustments in response to emerging trends or issues.
• Decide how often the data in the dashboard will be updated. This might range from real-time updates for certain metrics to weekly or monthly updates for others.
• Consider the resources needed for updates, especially if the process is manual. Automated tools can facilitate more frequent updates without significant effort.

Using the KPI Dashboard for Decision-Making:

• Utilize the dashboard to identify trends, track progress toward goals, and make informed decisions.
• For instance, a consistent decline in a particular metric may prompt an investigation and corrective action, while positive trends might indicate strategies worth reinforcing.

Business Scenario: a small manufacturing company using a financial dashboard to track production costs, sales, and inventory levels. By reviewing the dashboard weekly, they can quickly identify if rising production costs are affecting their profit margins or if changes in sales patterns require adjustments in inventory management.

Level of Difficulty:

Varies: The complexity of updating a dashboard depends on the chosen software and the nature of your business. Automated dashboards with real-time data integrations are less labor-intensive to maintain. However, businesses relying on manual data entry will need to allocate more time and resources for regular updates.

Implementing KPI Dashboards in Business Operations

Training and Onboarding:

• Educate your team about the importance and functionality of the dashboard. This could involve formal training sessions or workshops.
• Ensure that each team member understands how to interpret the data and how it relates to their specific roles and responsibilities.

Integrating Dashboard into Daily Operations:

• Make the dashboard easily accessible to relevant team members. This might involve setting it as a homepage on work computers or having regular dashboard review meetings.
• Encourage team members to use the dashboard for daily decision-making, tracking progress, and identifying areas for improvement.

Feedback and Adjustment:

• Gather feedback from team members on the dashboard’s usability and relevance.
• Be open to making adjustments to the dashboard based on this feedback, ensuring it remains a useful tool for the entire team.

Business Scenario: a small service-based company that implements a dashboard to track client engagement, billable hours, and revenue. The management team uses the dashboard in weekly meetings to review performance and make decisions about resource allocation and client management strategies. Regular use of the dashboard helps the company identify underperforming areas and quickly take corrective actions.

Level of Difficulty:

Intermediate: The difficulty lies in ensuring that the dashboard is seamlessly integrated into the daily workflow and that all team members are comfortable using it. The process requires a combination of technical know-how, training, and change management.

Final Thoughts

Creating and utilizing a financial KPI dashboard is a transformative step for small businesses aiming to enhance their financial management and decision-making processes. A well-designed dashboard provides a clear, visual representation of essential financial data, allowing for quick insights and informed strategic decisions. Key steps include identifying relevant business goals, selecting suitable KPIs, choosing the right software, and designing the dashboard for clarity and functionality. Regular review and update of the dashboard ensure its continued relevance and effectiveness.

Effective implementation of the dashboard into daily business operations is vital, involving training team members and integrating the dashboard into regular workflows for maximum benefit. With the right approach, a financial KPI dashboard becomes an invaluable tool, offering a comprehensive overview of a company's financial situation, saving time and resources, and driving the business toward growth and success.

FAQs on KPI Dashboards