Key points
- A daily dashboard: sales, collections, cash and alerts.
- Weekly: margin by item, stock alerts, overdue customers.
- Monthly: profit and loss, trends and comparisons.
- Look at numbers by item, customer and location, not just totals.
- Use alerts so you don’t have to go looking.
The daily dashboard
| Number | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Sales today vs same day last week | Spot a bad day early |
| Collections today | Cash coming in |
| Cash and bank balance | What you can spend |
| Items below minimum stock | What to order |
| Overdue customers | Who to call |
Weekly reports
- Margin by item and category: where profit really comes from.
- Fast and slow movers: what to push and what to stop buying.
- Receivables ageing: 0–30, 31–60, 60+ days.
- Salesman or counter performance, if relevant.
Monthly reports
- Profit and loss, compared with last month and last year.
- Sales trend by month.
- Top customers and suppliers.
- Stock value and stock age.
- GST summary.
Slice, don’t just total
Total sales tell you little. Sales by item, customer, location and salesman tell you what to do. Good ERP lets you open any total and see what is behind it.
Alerts instead of hunting
Set alerts for low stock, near-expiry items, overdue customers and margins below a limit. The numbers come to you.
A simple weekly routine
- Monday Last week’s sales and margin by category.
- Wednesday Overdue customers; plan calls.
- Friday Stock alerts and slow movers; plan buying.
For profit specifically, see profit and loss reporting.