Companies in any industry know the importance of metrics because they play a large part in both their daily interactions with clients, and analyzing their own effectiveness. However, it is surprising to see how much room many comapnies have to grow in the monitoring of their own financial metrics. They monitor their operations on a daily basis but wait weeks between checking on the overall financial health of the company.
BrightGauge’s interactive dashboard is designed to be an all-in-one solution that will eliminate the data silo. Our system integrates directly with the most popular accounting softwares to ensure that our clients always have up-to-date financial metrics on hand to influence key business decisions.
Having a real-time view of your company’s financial metrics puts you in a position to capitalize. In business, it’s commonplace for companies to evaluate financial metrics well after the period that the metrics cover. Some don’t deep-dive into the numbers until the following quarter. Even profit and loss statements may not be evaluated for weeks after a period ends.
Now, there isn’t anything wrong with evaluating quarter-to-quarter metrics. Those comparisons yield valuable data and conclusions on their own. Having that big-picture view is extremely useful. But you shouldn’t forego real-time analysis when you have those numbers readily available.
Every day you make decisions that will affect the bottom-line of your business. Understanding how small decisions have a measurable impact on your financial metrics is valuable data in itself. While companies shouldn’t be too reactionary, keeping tabs on important metrics as they shift can help businesses to avoid issues that otherwise might take months to notice. By scheduling weekly analysis of your financial metrics, you'll keep your fingers on the pulse of your business. You’ll know what is working and what isn’t well before you dig into your profit and loss statements.
Like any important business metric, financial data will trend as changes are made. Delaying analysis makes it nearly impossible to catch and correct negative trends before they balloon into serious issues. Keeping a close eye on your financial data can help you to spot trends early and take action to mitigate or continue the trend.
At BrightGauge, we’ve included features that make reviewing financial metrics simple for any business. Let’s take a look at an example of what our clients see when they login to their dashboard and sift through their financial metrics:
In this example, we are looking at the Total YTD revenue for an example company. Clients are able to customize and filter or sift through the pre-loaded metrics. You won’t have to run time-consuming database crawls or ask your team to generate reports. All vital financial metrics are available directly in your BrightGauge dashboard. You can load up reports with a few mouse clicks and keep an eye on trends as they develop. Retrospective analysis is useful but can be supplemented with a more hands-on approach.
Real-time monitoring improves decision-making, while comparing performance monthly can highlight areas of improvement or confirm current strategies are working. Keeping a close eye on these metrics after changes allows businesses to react to the data. This results in a swifter, more beneficial decision-making processes.
Cash flow is arguably the most important metric for any business. It provides the stability and flexibility that allows businesses to grow. Having a healthy cash flow allows your company to invest in new projects, prepare for disasters, and capitalize on opportunities. Most business owners know this. Why then, do so many businesses fail in accounts receivable management? According to the Atradius Payment Practices Barometer of 2014, 52% of the value of invoices 90 days past due were written off as uncollectable in North and South America. The average in Europe was 35%.
The most important aspect of healthy cash flow is proper accounts receivable management. Having the right processes in place to incentivize clients to pay invoices on time is important. So is ensuring that you are staying on top of overdue accounts. Reps must communicate in a way that encourages quick resolutions.
In a BrightGauge financials dashboard, we make it simple for businesses to improve cash flow. Outstanding invoices are spelled out plainly by the company, amount owed, and time past due.
Take a look:
Having easy access to your Accounts Receivable data helps to ensure that you have a handle on your expected cash flow. This makes investing in assets and making changes less stressful and more informed. Keeping a real-time view of your overdue accounts makes it easy to follow up personally with overdue accounts, a critical step for maintaining positive cash flow and keeping clients from falling behind. BrightGauge integrates directly with several popular financial software solutions to ensure that you always have reliable, real-time financial data on hand.
At BrightGauge, we believe that connecting operations and financial management in one seamless platform empowers businesses. We’ve gone the extra mile to ensure that our clients are able to connect all of their key business data in one single platform. BrightGauge integrates with the most popular business finance software in use today including QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Reckon.