How To Set, Monitor and Reach Your Business Goals

Are you on track to meet your business’ financial targets this year? What are your current monthly run rates? Are your expenses too high for the revenue you are producing? How do you know? Did you set financial goals and targets for the year?

One of the most important aspects of a business leaders’ role is setting the overall direction for their organization. Part of the overall direction that an organization requires is to have clearly established financial targets. Once these targets are set, the leader’s job is to track the performance against the targets and to strategically lead the organization to meet or exceed the targets.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about business analytics called You Will Get Crushed Without Accurate Business Analytics. In that post I introduced a yearly income statement that compares past years financial data against your current yearend totals. This report is excellent but is really only a rear view mirror on your business. A business leader needs a report that is also forward looking so that the business can make adjustments and keep on the most successful track possible to meet goals and expectations.

This is where the Monthly Financial Report can be a great help.

Below is an example of a Monthly Financial Report that should be a standard report for any business leader (click image to expand). Although this is similar to the report that I wrote about in the article referenced above, this report is used to show the financial performance in the current year as you progress through month to month. It shows;

• The past 3 years of annual financial performance in every category
• The full year goal for the current year for each category
• The month by month performance per category
• The quarterly totals per category
• The yearly projected totals per category based on the current run rate

This information provides a very clear picture to the business leader. It shows them where they are on track and where they are ahead or behind their plan in each category for the year. Just a quick glance at the YTD Projected numbers (which shows where the business will end up if it continues performing at its current monthly average) and the Full Yr Goal numbers provides enough information to allow you to prioritize resources and direct attention to areas needing help.

For example, the report below indicates that a Monthly Revenue of $35,681/month is going to result in a yearly Revenue of $428,058 which misses the overall Revenue target by over $100,000. The business leader can easily see this disconnect and can assign resources and attention to increase Revenue per month and get their business back on track.

This report provides the tools a business leader needs to understand how their business is performing against previous years and against the goals that have been set for the current year. Spend some time this week and find out where your business is at. Download the Monthly Financial Report Excel tool from the Business Tools page. Customize it for your business and use it to tweak and tune your business to greater levels of success!

“Where there is no Future Vision, there is nothing to work toward creating.  The lack of a goal to work toward will result in failure.” James Canton

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