Cash KPIs a business owner should check every Monday
Seven or eight cash KPIs will tell you more than a thirty-page report. Plain-language formulas, sensible thresholds and a worked example with numbers.
Monday morning. You open the bank, you open the spreadsheet, and you are not quite sure what the money is telling you. The balance looks fine, but you don’t really know if it is until you factor in the payroll run on the 28th, the VAT quarter and the big client who still hasn’t paid.
An owner doesn’t need thirty indicators to sleep well. You need seven or eight cash KPIs picked on purpose, kept in the same place, calculated the same way every week, with a threshold you understand and a clear sign of when to act. This is the treasury dashboard laid out below, written for a small business that runs its day-to-day in Odoo and its forecast in Excel. The job of the dashboard is to leave out the metrics that never change a decision.
A dashboard on a single page
Eight indicators fit on one A4. For each one you set three things: how it is calculated, how often you check it, and an indicative threshold (green, amber, red) tuned to your sector. The threshold matters less than the trend. A DSO of 75 days can be normal in public-sector contracting and alarming in retail; what it can’t do is drift up for two weeks running without an explanation. Looking at all eight together, every Monday in fifteen minutes, changes the shape of the week.
The eight indicators
1. Real available cash
What you actually have today, not the balance on the statement. Reconciled balances across all bank accounts plus petty cash, minus payments already issued that haven’t cleared, minus committed cash (deposits, customer retentions held until project end). Formula: reconciled balance + cash on hand − payments in flight − committed. Frequency: daily if margins are tight, weekly otherwise. If the bank balance and the book balance disagree, close that gap first because every other KPI leans on it. Threshold: at least one full payroll in cash; project-based or seasonal businesses should hold more because inflows are uneven.
2. Low point of the next 13 weeks
The worst foreseeable moment of the quarter and the week it lands. Formula: minimum of the weekly projected balance over 13 weeks, loading collections by due date, supplier payments, payroll, taxes, loan instalments and recurring overheads. Frequency: weekly, rolling (add a week at the far end, drop the one that just passed). Threshold: stays above zero with margin. Below one payroll, amber. Below zero, red and you move something.
3. Weeks of runway on fixed costs
How long you’d last if sales stopped tomorrow. Formula: real cash / (monthly fixed costs / 4.33). Frequency: weekly, though it moves slowly. Threshold: 4-8 weeks is comfortable for services; a business on recurring contracts can accept 3; a project-based or seasonal business should sit between 8 and 12 because inflows are lumpy. Runway only matters if your inflows can stop with no notice, and in some sectors they literally do.
4. Days sales outstanding (DSO)
Average time between issuing an invoice and getting paid. If it climbs, you are financing your customers for free. Formula: (receivables / revenue last 12 months) × 365. Frequency: monthly, with the weekly overdue number next to it. Threshold: at net 30, a DSO of 35-45 is fine, 50-60 asks for a review, above 65 is a problem; at net 60, add thirty. In public-sector contracting a structurally high DSO is simply the model, with the ceiling set by your cash cushion rather than the sector average.
5. Days payable outstanding (DPO)
The mirror of DSO. Managed well, it funds you; badly, it burns the relationship. Formula: (payables / purchases last 12 months) × 365. Frequency: monthly. Threshold: close to agreed terms. A DPO clearly above the term means you are running late and your suppliers are noticing; well below is working capital you could put to use.
6. Cash conversion cycle
How many days a euro spends out of your account between leaving to produce and coming back when the customer pays. Formula: DSO + DIO − DPO, where DIO = inventory / cost of goods sold × 365. With no inventory, DSO − DPO. Frequency: monthly. Threshold: any sustained improvement is good news; a cycle that lengthens two quarters in a row calls for action.
7. Overdue receivables percentage
How much of what you are owed is already past due. Formula: overdue AR / total AR, with a bucket table (1-30 days overdue, 31-60, 61-90, 90+). Frequency: weekly. Threshold: below 10% is healthy, 10-20% means tighten up, above 20% is a real problem. Sectors with 90-120 day terms accept more, but money that crosses sixty days rarely comes back whole.
8. Customer concentration of inflows
How much of your cash depends on one or two names. Formula: share of the last 12 months’ revenue from your largest customer, and the combined share of the top five. Frequency: quarterly. Threshold: a single customer above 25-30% calls for a plan B; the top five above 60% means you are exposed. The risk is in having no alternative, not in the big customer itself.
At-a-glance table
| Indicator | What it tells you | Formula | Frequency | Indicative threshold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real cash | Money available today | Reconciled − in flight − committed | Daily/weekly | ≥ 1 full payroll |
| 13-week low | Worst point of the quarter | Minimum of rolling forecast | Weekly | > 1 payroll above zero |
| Weeks of runway | Resilience with no sales | Real cash / (fixed per month / 4.33) | Weekly | 4-8 (services) |
| DSO | Days to collect | (AR / revenue) × 365 | Monthly | Agreed term + 5-15 |
| DPO | Days to pay | (AP / purchases) × 365 | Monthly | Near agreed term |
| Cash cycle | Days money tied up | DSO + DIO − DPO | Monthly | Flat or trending down |
| % overdue | Late receivables | Overdue / total AR | Weekly | < 10% healthy |
| Concentration | Dependency on few | Top customer share | Quarterly | < 25% largest |
A worked example
Thorne & Hadley Design, a creative studio in Bristol with a sister team in Dublin. Fifteen people, €2.4m revenue last year, €400k of external spend (mostly freelancers), two bank accounts, agency clients on 60-day terms. Monday 2 November:
- Real cash = €103,000 − €8,000 in flight = €95,000. Monthly payroll: €72,000. Green.
- Thirteen-week low: week 7, right after the VAT quarter payment, €14,000. Below one payroll: amber.
- Fixed costs €110,000/month, €25,404/week. Runway = 95,000 / 25,404 = 3.7 weeks. A touch below the comfort band for 60-day customers.
- AR = €480,000. DSO = 480,000 / 2,400,000 × 365 = 73 days. Terms are 60; two agency accounts account for most of the slippage.
- AP = €55,000. DPO = 55,000 / 400,000 × 365 = 50 days. Freelancer terms sit at 30-45; slightly stretched, worth watching.
- No stock. Cash cycle = 73 − 50 = 23 days. Flat on the quarter.
- Overdue = 90,000 / 480,000 = 18.8%. Two names concentrate it.
- Largest client: 28% of revenue; top five at 61%. Above threshold.
Eight numbers, fifteen minutes, three concrete decisions: call the two slow agencies today, hold the hire for four weeks, open the overdraft conversation now so you aren’t opening it in week 7. None of that shows up on a P&L.
What changes when a tool reads your Odoo
Building this dashboard in Excel is possible, and plenty of owners do it. The hard part is keeping it alive. Every Monday someone exports invoices, payments and due dates, reconciles by hand, makes sure intra-group transactions aren’t counted twice if there are several entities, and formats the sheet.
Kashbi reads your Odoo and shows you, up to date, what you are going to collect and pay, who owes you, what is overdue and the cash of the next 13 weeks. With several entities, it consolidates and separates intra-group flows. If you want to see what happens when your biggest customer pays 60 days late, it simulates it without touching your Odoo. If you are still choosing an approach, the guide to cash flow software for small business covers tool types and market price ranges, and what is cash flow in business lays down the groundwork everything above rests on.
Frequently asked questions
How many treasury KPIs are enough?
Seven to nine, on the same sheet. Fewer and you miss signals; more and you stop reading the dashboard by the third Monday. The test is whether each KPI leads to an action you can take. If it doesn’t, either the metric is wrong for you or the business isn’t ready for it yet.
How are these different from classic financial ratios?
Classic ratios (working capital, current ratio, gearing) describe the accounting picture and are read at quarter-end. Cash KPIs track money moving in and out every week and are built to drive decisions now. Complementary, not substitutes.
Can I calculate DSO and DPO if sales are seasonal?
Yes, with two tweaks. Use the last twelve months of real revenue (or purchases) as the denominator, not the current month annualised, and watch the trend rather than the absolute value. A seasonal spike inflates receivables and distorts a DSO calculated on a single month.
Is the cash conversion cycle useful if I hold no inventory?
Yes. For a service business the cycle collapses to DSO minus DPO, and it still tells you something useful: how many days you spend funding the work you do for your customers before they pay you. Push it into negative territory and cash works on your side.