Using the Dashboard Focus Areas

The focus areas are designed to quickly provide you with the information that is needed to:

• See if things are going well – if so, you can carry on with the other aspects of your job for now or, if you have spare time, focus on strengthening the highlighted positive aspects;
• See if there are any specific areas that need attention.

Performance Analysis

Is everything going well or are there specific financial areas that need my attention?

• The Net Profit, OPEX, Cost of Sales and Income graphs give you and indication of whether your high level company performance is getting better or worse.  Green bars mean that performance is improving and red bars mean that performance is declining.
• Last Month red bars need attention.  Use the corresponding figures in the Key Focus Areas block to decide if action is required.  If you think you need to spring into action, click on these bars to drill down into the detail.
• Actions that resulted in Last Month bars being green should be repeated so you should probably schedule time to use some of your attention units for this in the near future.

Profitability Management

Which products / services are doing well and which expenses need my attention?

Say goodbye to figuring out where the differences are by exporting the Profit and Loss to Excel!  Funancial SMART calculates the differences for you and presents you with the top three focus areas within each category.

• Top Products – if you have configured Revenue Lines in your Company Settings, this block shows the top three products / services that are contributing to Gross Profit.  The idea here is that you should focus on selling the top 3 products and services that are generating the most profit.  This will help achieve sustainability.
• OPEX increases – these are the top three operating expenses that went up last month.  If the increase is unexpected, click on the heading to get the detail and start investigating now.  Either way, keep an eye on these 3 this month to prevent them from getting out of control.
• COS and Income Increases – As a general rule, any Cost of Sale increase should have a corresponding Income increase.  If you don’t see corresponding increases, it’s probably time to click on the COS Increases heading and start investigating.
  Keep an eye on the top 3 COS increases throughout the course of this month to prevent them from getting out of control.

Cash Management

Do I have enough cash to survive this month?

Together, the Cash Availability and Debtors Overview graphs give you an indication of the amount of cash you are likely to have in the near future.

• If the projected cash balance is red, you need to focus your attention on getting money in from your clients.
  • If you have red or orange bars in the Debtors Overview graph, click on these bars and start making phone calls! You are currently bankrolling your clients’ businesses when you should be bankrolling yours.
  • If you have a large green bar in the Debtors Overview graph, you need to make sure that these clients are actually going to pay you before the month is out.  Click on the green bar and start making the calls!
  • If there are no bars in the Debtors Overview graph you had better start selling more and completing any outstanding orders fast!
• If the projected cash balance is green you are probably OK but:
  • If you have Do Something or Make a Decision bars in the Debtors Overview graph, you are currently bankrolling your clients’ businesses.  We suggest that you click on these bars and start sending those emails and making phone calls before its too late.