The 8 Indicators Your ERP Should Show You Every Monday

Most executive dashboards have a problem: no one opens them. Not because management doesn't care about the data, but because there are so many numbers that none replica stand out. The secret to a good report is not to show everything — it is to choose the few indicators that truly tell you how the business is doing.

Less is more

A CEO does not need 40 charts; they need to know, at a glance, if the business is healthy and where to focus attention this week. These are eight indicators that a well-configured ERP can deliver to you every Monday, without having to build anything manually.

• Cash flow: how much money is coming in and going out, and how much is available. The indicator that most quickly kills (or saves) a company.

• Sales for the period vs. goal: how you are doing against your target, not just the raw number.

• Profit margin: selling more is not enough; you need to know how much is left after costs.

• Inventory turnover: how fast your product is moving. Stagnant inventory is sleeping money.

• Collection cycle (days sales outstanding): how long it takes to collect on what you sell. Selling without collecting is not selling.

• Sales pipeline: how many open opportunities you have and how much they are worth. Your commercial future.

• Pending / backordered orders: what you promised and have not yet delivered. A temperature check on customer satisfaction.

• Upcoming accounts payable: what commitments are coming up, so no payment catches you by surprise.

The value is not the chart, it's the decision

Each of these indicators exists to trigger an action: speed up collections, push a campaign, halt a purchase, follow up with a client. A dashboard that doesn't change any decisions is expensive decoration.

The advantage of having it in the ERP

When these numbers come directly from your ERP, they are in real time and do not rely on someone compiling the report. On Monday morning they are already there, ready to guide the week instead of reconstructing the last one.

Does your management decide with data or with gut feelings? At GW, we build the dashboard that a CEO actually reads. Let's talk.