Dashboard
The Dashboard is the home page of the Funancial SMART product.
Use this page to understand how you are currently performing compared to the previous three months. Quickly get replies to the following questions:
- Where am I in terms of sales?
- Am I likely to sell enough of my solutions this month?
- Am I making enough profit on the things I am selling?
- Should I be concerned with this month's expenses?
- Is there a potential danger of losing my company this month?
Replies to these questions are supported through the information made available via the following areas:
- Big context-reactive panel blocks with averages
- Debtors state
- Cash Availability
- Financial Indicators affecting your medium-term viability
- Short-term liquidity overview
Big context-reactive blocks with averages
- The colour of the Projected Gross Profit and Projected Net Profit block changes according to the result of the comparison against last month’s data.
- Red = worse.
- Green = better.
*If you need to do some investigation on these values, use the Company Health module for more detailed information.
Where am I in terms of sales? Am I likely to sell enough of my services this month?
- Use the value in the Income block (fourth big panel block at the top) to find out where you are in terms of this month’s invoiced sales.
- Compare this with the Average Income in the Averages panel to see how you are tracking against the average income over the past 3 months.
Am I making enough profit on the things I am selling?
- The projected gross profit value is shown (second big panel block at the top) is based on this month’s income, plus the “Cash likely to come in this month” value plus any income/expense adjustments minus the average cost-of-sales over the last 3 months.
- Compare this with the Average Gross profit in the same panel. If the current Projected Gross Profit is significantly lower or higher than the average, do some investigation to make sure that the difference is justified.
*You can use either the Company Health Module in the left navigation pane to investigate deeper or the Reports > Top Products to determine which cost of sale expenses are driving the profitability reported.
*Always remember that you must generate enough Gross Profit to cover your expenses. If you are not generating enough Gross Profit then you may either need to review your current suppliers or revise your pricing strategy. If you are unable to do that then your only course of action may be to better manage your operating expenses.
Should I be concerned with this month’s operating expenses?
- Compare the value in the Current Operating Expense block (third big block at the top) with the Average Operating Expense value in the same panel. If this is higher, investigate your operating expenses now!
- If this is lower, this may be due to the fact that this month’s bills haven’t arrived yet.
- Use the Current Month operating expenses information in the Company Health module and confirm that your operating expenses being managed well
*You can use either the Company Health Module in the left navigation pane to investigate deeper or the Spend Analysis to determine which operating costs are lower from the previous months allowing you to home in on whether any entries are missing or still to be done by your bookkeeper.
Is there a potential danger of losing my company this month?
- If the value in the Projected Net Profit block or the average value for Net Profit is negative, there is a potential danger. Start investigating now!
- If your Projected Net Profit block is red click on the Projected Net Profit Block. You will be taken to the Gross Profit analysis report which will allow you to identify which Cost-of-Sale items are affecting your profitability.
- You can also use the Company Health module to do some investigation.
Cash Availability Chart
Do I have enough cash to survive this month?
- If the Projected Spend bar is longer than the Projected Cash bar, you may be in danger.
- Use the Cash Flow module for further investigation.
- NOTE: If the Estimated Balance is negative, you may really be in danger. Use the Cash Flow module for and start investigating now!
Debtors Overview Chart
Am I managing my debtors well?
- Your debtor management strategy can make you or break you. Funancial classifies clients who owe you money into four categories - Monitor, Act Now, Do Something and Make a Decision based on the overdue state of the invoices.
- The further out the classification of overdue payment, the less likely you are to be paid!
- Use the Debtors Overview Chart to determine the state of your debtor management strategy.
- If you have no debtors that are simply great! (of course, assuming you have business happening)
- If you do have debtors who owe you money make sure that you do not let them go beyond the Monitor stage unless really necessary, or at least you are conscious of what you are doing.
*Remember that delayed payments heavily influence your cash flow, which in turn can impact your ability to pay your own suppliers. Debtor management is a core strategy. Click on the individual bars of the chart to be taken to a detail view of who owes you money and for which invoices.
Financial Indicators - Medium Term
Is there a potential danger of losing my company this month?
- If either the Cash in Bank balance or Average Net Profit value is negative, there is a potential danger.
- Use the Cash Flow and Company Health modules and start investigating now!
Am I managing future cash in and out well enough?
- If your Creditor Days is less than your Debtor Days, you are spending money faster than you are collecting it. Implement a process to delay your bill payments and a process to ensure that your customers settle invoices sooner.
- If the Creditor Days value is red, you are paying creditors faster than the limit you set. Either change the limit or implement a process to delay bill payments.
- If the Debtors Days value is red, the collection of money from your customers is slower than the limit you set. Either change the limit or implement a process to ensure that customers settle invoices sooner.
- If your Overdue Debtors value is high, run the Debtor reports of Funancial from 'Reports > Debtors > All' or 'Reports > Debtors > Overdue'. Phone these customers and get them to settle their invoices as soon as possible.
- If your Overdue Creditors is high, you may not be managing your short-term debt well (this usually goes hand in hand with a cash flow issue). Check with your bookkeeper and confirm that these haven’t been paid. If the value is correct, you probably need to focus on generating more sales to your top 3 clients, negotiating better deals with your top 3 most expensive suppliers and/or managing your top 3 operating expense increases. Use the Company Health module to get the information you need.
Liquidity Overview - Short Term
Is there a danger of losing my company in the medium term?
- Funancial SMART's definition of liquidity is not the industry standard for this term. Our definition is used to gives you an idea of – if you were forced to liquidate your company today – how much cash you are likely to have in the bank if:
- all customers settled their invoices today
- all debts to the government were paid today
- all debts to your creditors were paid today
- This liquidity does not take medium or long-term assets and liabilities into account (these assets would take too long to turn into cash)
*Important: This liquidity does not take medium or long-term assets and liabilities into account. This is so as realistically these assets would take too long to turn into cash.
Using the Liquidity panel to make decisions:
- If your bank balance is low, you should probably start delaying payments to creditors and calling your debtors to ask them to settle invoices as soon as possible. Use the Debtors value to estimate the amount of cash you could potentially collect in the short term.
- Have a look at the value for Creditors. If your bank balance plus the value for Debtors is less than the Creditors value, there is a potential danger and you need to increase sales, increase gross profit or potentially reduce operating expenses soon.
- If your Cash in Bank balance is less than the Taxes value, you probably need to start chasing your customers for payments now. Penalties and interest from the government will hurt, so make sure that you have this money readily available when the payment is due.
- Use the Taxes value (which combines in it Sales Tax liabilities like VAT, together with payroll tax) to get an indication of a potential worst-case scenario. Government and Taxes are worked on a complicated set of calculations based on inputs and outputs and this figure will change almost every time a new invoice or bill is added to your accounting package.
- Your Cash in Bank balance plus Debtors value should probably be more than half of your Taxes due (e.g. to prevent a potential near-future crisis).
- Use the Liquidity figure to decide whether you need to concentrate on mitigating short term risk (negative liquidity) or see how well you are doing with regard to getting better at managing the short-term risk (positive liquidity)