What numbers should I actually look at every week to run the business?
Short answer
Pick five to seven numbers you can pull in fifteen minutes every Monday, not a forty-tab spreadsheet nobody keeps updated. Cash, sales booked, jobs completed, and one leading indicator of trouble beat a dozen vanity metrics.
Fewer numbers, checked every week, beats more numbers checked never
Most owners either track nothing beyond the bank balance, or build an elaborate dashboard they update twice and abandon. The scorecard that works is short enough that you'll actually fill it out at the same time every Monday morning, coffee in hand, fifteen minutes.
The point isn't precision to the dollar. It's catching a trend, a slow week, a shrinking margin, three weeks before it would otherwise show up as a crisis in the bank account.
The seven numbers most owner-operated shops need
Cash in the bank today. Revenue booked or invoiced this week versus the same week last month. Jobs or tickets completed. Average ticket or job size. Accounts receivable over 30 days. A capacity number specific to your trade, like bay hours booked or crew days scheduled. And one leading indicator, like new leads or estimates given, that tells you what next month looks like before it happens.
Add or swap in something specific to your trade, but resist the urge to track fifteen things. If you can't fill it out in fifteen minutes without pulling three different reports, you'll stop doing it by week four.
Look for trend, not the single week
One slow week means nothing. Three weeks trending the same direction on the same number means something is changing and you should find out why before it's a pattern you can't unwind. Keep the last eight weeks visible on the same page so the trend is obvious at a glance.
Weekly scorecard template
One row per week, same seven columns, keep eight weeks visible.
WEEKLY NUMBERS SCORECARD Week of: __________ 1. Cash in bank today: $__________ 2. Revenue booked/invoiced this week: $__________ 3. Jobs/tickets completed: __________ 4. Average ticket/job size: $__________ 5. AR over 30 days: $__________ 6. Capacity used (bay hours / crew days / covers): ____ % 7. New leads / estimates given this week: __________ One thing that stood out this week: __________________ One thing to watch next week: __________________
Building your scorecard
- 1.Pick five to seven numbers you can pull in 15 minutes, same time every week
- 2.Include cash, a revenue number, a volume number, and one leading indicator
- 3.Keep the last eight weeks on one page so trend is visible
- 4.Review it the same day and time every week without fail
- 5.Adjust the list once a quarter, don't let it balloon
Where owners get this wrong
- Building a 40-metric dashboard that dies after the second week.
- Only reacting to a single bad week instead of watching the trend.
- Tracking revenue but never accounts receivable, so cash problems show up as a surprise.
Ask your version of this question
This is one business owner-tested take. Your shop size, trade, and team change the answer. Ask the exact version inside Ask a Shop Owner and get a response grounded in how owners like you actually handled it.
Now run it against your numbers.
This answer is written for shops in general. Inside Ask a Shop Owner it becomes your answer: your revenue, your crew, your market, your history. Ask "What numbers should I actually look at every week to run the business" and get the version that accounts for what you already told us.
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