A one-screen view of the business starts with definitions, not charts

Monday meeting. Sales say there were 40 orders last week, the warehouse says 31, accounts say 27. Half an hour goes on whose number is right, and in the end it turns out they all are. Sales count orders when the customer confirms, the warehouse when it ships, accounts when it invoices.

A screen showing the whole business will not shorten that meeting unless someone first agrees what each number means. It will only show the same three numbers more nicely.

Every number needs a definition

For every number that belongs on the overview, write down three things:

• What is counted. Orders, lines or value? With or without VAT? Do cancelled orders count?
• From which moment. When the customer confirmed, when the goods left, or when the invoice went out? For the same period those are three different numbers, all useful, but not under the same name.
• From which program. Every number has one source. If the same figure can come from two programs, agree which one counts, because sooner or later they will drift apart.

The glossary does not need to be long. It is enough that when someone says “last week we sold”, everyone means the same number.

Position, flow and warning

The numbers on an overview are not all of one kind, and they read more easily when that is visible:

• Position says how much of something there is right now: stock, open orders, unpaid invoices. You look at it every morning.
• Flow says how much of something went through in a period: sold, delivered, collected this week. You compare it with the last period.
• Warning says what has crossed a line: an order running late, an item below minimum stock, an invoice past its due date. It does not wait for anyone to go looking.

Most of the value is in the third kind. Position and flow an owner can find out by asking. A warning is what they would otherwise learn too late, usually from a customer.

A number that moves nobody is not needed

For every number on the overview there should be two answers: at what value it becomes bad, and who does something then. Without those answers the number is decoration. Such numbers pile up quickly, because adding one more chart is easier than deciding who is responsible for something.

It works the other way round too: if someone checks three programs by hand every morning to know whether to act, that is a candidate for a warning.

Same glossary, different screens

An overview of the whole business does not mean everyone looks at the same screen. The warehouse needs what is waiting to be packed and what is running late, sales need open quotes and customers who have not paid, accounts need what has not been invoiced. The owner sees warnings from every part, and position and flow only as far as decisions require.

The difference is in which numbers are chosen, not in what they mean. “Open order” has to mean the same on the warehouse screen and on the owner’s. When that holds, the meeting no longer starts with whose number is right, but with what we are going to do.

Every number carries a time

A number on screen is only as accurate as the last entry behind it is fresh. If the warehouse records dispatches at the end of the day, stock at noon shows the morning, and the screen does not say so on its own.

So numbers that depend on manual entry should show when they were last updated. Read that for a few days in a row and you will see which data arrives late. Those are exactly the first candidates for being recorded when the work happens, not afterwards. How far a single piece of data travels before it reaches a report is shown in from enquiry to delivery.

A first version without any software

1. Take the minutes or notes from the last few meetings and pick out every number that was argued over.
2. Write a definition for each: what is counted, from which moment, and from which program.
3. Mark which numbers are position, which are flow and which are warnings.
4. For every warning, write down the threshold and the name of the person who acts on it.

On one sheet of paper you will have the overview the business actually needs, before any screen. If profit per order turns up among the numbers, and not just turnover, have a look at the piece on where the gap between turnover and profit goes.

You can write the glossary of numbers yourselves in an afternoon. Having those numbers then calculate themselves, with no adding up at the end of the month, is part of our business digitalisation and automation service, and get in touch if you would like to go through the glossary together.