Small Business Financial Dashboard
Four numbers instead of three statements, and every one of them reconciled to the bank balance rather than to a profit and loss.
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The Owner View
[Company] — four numbers, week ending [date]
Four, and nothing else. A page with fourteen numbers on it has no headline, so anything added here replaces something rather than joining it.
1 Free cash
| Bank balances, all accounts | — |
| less sales tax collected, not yet remitted | — |
| less payroll taxes withheld, not yet paid | — |
| less customer deposits on undelivered work | — |
| Free cash | — |
|---|---|
| Share of the balance that is not the business’s | — |
2 Fixed cost base
| A month, from recurrence across twelve months | — |
| Items in the base / entered this month / left it | — |
| Stoppable inside thirty days | — |
3 Runway, which is three questions rather than one
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How long at the current rate | — |
| How long if revenue stopped, no action taken | — |
| Can we make the next payroll, on collectibles | — |
4 Profit to cash gap
| Profit, last full month | — |
| Change in the bank balance | — |
| Gap, and the three largest lines in it | — |
|---|---|
| Of the gap: timing, and permanent | — |
Every one of the four is reconciled to a bank statement rather than to a report. That is the whole design constraint, and it is why there is no profit and loss on this page: the accounting package already produces one, and the owner already has the question it does not answer.
Every free small business financial dashboard template renders the same three statements: a profit and loss, a balance sheet, a cash flow summary, then ten to fifteen ratios and a variance-to-budget table. They answer an accountant's question, which is how the period performed. Under an accrual method income is reported when it is earned rather than when it is paid, so none of them answers the owner's question, which is whether the balance in the account is money the business can spend.
Thornbury Signworks is an invented nine-person sign shop. Twelve months: $1,428,000 of revenue, $148,300 of profit, and a bank balance $56,340 lower at the end of the year than at the start. Both figures are correct, and only one of them was on a report. Nine legitimate lines sit between them, and five of the nine are on no line of a profit and loss at all. Owner draws, loan principal, equipment, tax held and tax paid moved $176,740 out of the account and appeared on nothing.
Then the numerator. The bank said $84,200 on 31 March, of which $23,180 was sales tax collected, $8,940 was payroll tax withheld and $19,500 was prepayment on undelivered work. Free cash was $32,580, so 61.3 percent of the balance belonged to somebody else. The best-known benchmark here, JPMorgan Chase Institute's read of 597,000 small businesses, puts the median cash buffer at 27 days and computes it on the balance. Same arithmetic, wrong numerator.
What's in the pack
The Owner View
The four numbers on one page and nothing else, with a flags block and a line for the week's decision. A review that never produces one becomes a ritual, and rituals get skipped.
Cash Position sheet
Balances across every account, then the three held obligations with their dates, then free cash and the headroom after thirty days of committed outflow. Whether a deposit is refundable is in the agreement.
Profit to Cash Bridge sheet
Nine lines from profit to the change in the bank balance, closing to the dollar, each marked timing or permanent. The inventory line is capital held rather than spent, which is a different kind of gap than a missing invoice.
Runway sheet
Three figures with the question each answers, the inputs behind each, and the no-action assumption written down on the one that assumes revenue stopped. Plus the reserve target and the gap to it. A runway is months; which week actually runs short is a thirteen week forecast.
Fixed Cost Base sheet
Every recurring charge with its months of twelve, its spread, its bookkeeping category, where it lands on the profit and loss, and whether it could actually be stopped inside thirty days.
Revenue and Margin Trend sheet
Twelve months of contribution against the fixed base, so coverage and break-even move with the base. One month here came in at 0.95, which means it did not pay for itself. The same coverage arithmetic, run against debt instead of the fixed base, is most of what a lender's own debt service coverage calculation needs next.
Metric Definitions
Each of the four in plain language: what it is, what it is not, the arithmetic, and the specific way it gets read wrong. Written for somebody who does not read financial statements.
Owner Pay Note
Profit before and after the owner is paid, because a draw is not an expense. Whether a job or a service line is carrying that pay is a different exercise. Setting the pay itself, salary against distribution, is the owner pay and distribution pack.
Review Routine and eight prompts
Ten minutes a week on a fixed agenda, twenty a month for the bridge, and a prompt per decision. Where the other thirty-nine hours go is its own audit.
How it works
- 1
Take the files or install the pack
Five blank sheets and five documents as CSV and Word files with no account, or install the whole thing into a private Space with the agent already primed on the bridge.
- 2
Send twelve months of transactions
Every account and every card, as raw rows rather than a categorised report. The draws, the principal, the equipment and the tax payments are all in there and on no statement you have seen. If those months are not written up yet, the bookkeeping catch-up comes first.
- 3
Answer three questions nothing exports
Sales tax collected and not remitted, payroll tax withheld and not paid, deposits on work not delivered. None of the three is a transaction, which is why free cash is never computed.
- 4
Get the gap, then set the thresholds
Both runway figures and the distance between them, the bridge closing to the dollar, and a reserve target. Then fill in the flags once and stop discussing them.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. Five sheets, five documents and eight prompts with no signup and no card, and they are the same files the agent works in. Editing with AI is the optional path, where your own bank transactions become the bridge and the fixed base.
What format are the downloaded files?
CSV for Cash Position, the Profit to Cash Bridge, Runway, Fixed Cost Base and the trend, and Word for the Owner View, Metric Definitions, the Owner Pay Note and the Review Routine, zipped together. Excel, Numbers, Sheets, Word and Pages open them directly.
Why is the bank balance not my cash?
Because some of it was collected for somebody else. Sales tax is the state's, and the IRS calls withheld income and employment taxes trust fund taxes because the employer holds the employee's money in trust until the deposit is made. Customer deposits are refundable if a job is cancelled.
Why not read the fixed costs off the categories?
Because the categories get the total nearly right and the composition badly wrong. On the worked example the total was $2,370 out and the composition $10,610 out, which is 27.9 percent of the base. Composition is the only thing the number is for.
Why three runway figures instead of one?
Because one figure is the average of scenarios that never happen. How long at the current rate, how long if revenue stopped, and whether the next payroll clears are three questions with three answers: 5.8 months, 26 days and 1.5 months on the same week's data.
Does this replace my bookkeeper or my accountant?
No. It reads what the bookkeeping produced and adds the four numbers it does not. Nothing here is tax advice, and taxes still have to be paid as income is earned, with a penalty possible for a late estimate even when a refund is due.
What if my books are a mess?
The transactions are the input that decides everything, and they do not have to be categorised, because the recurrence test ignores the categories anyway. If months are genuinely missing, the deadlines worth protecting while you catch up are in the compliance calendar.
Find out how much of your bank balance is actually yours
Download the blank pack as Word and CSV files, or open it in River, send twelve months of transactions, and get free cash and the bridge back first.
Edit with AI