Retailer Art Freedman uses the term “Dashboard Indicators” to refer to what tells you the health of your business. Here’s some of what he has to say in Making Money Is Not Illegal, Immoral or Fattening:
“What are your daily Dashboard Indicators? What numbers do you want to check on for every day you do business? Store sales, I hope. Overall store margins. Average transaction and voids by cashier. Maybe the weather, since when you put it together with sales figures, you can get a better idea how to order inventory in the future. For the same sort of reason, knowing what advertising you had out on the street can be helpful.
“What do you want to check on every single week? How about payroll, sales by department, margins by department? How about your monthly Dashboard Indicators? Maybe inventory turnover, markdowns, and open to buy versus budget.
“I call them Dashboard Indicators because, for me, your store is a vehicle, just like your car. It can take you wherever you want to go. But think about what you need to make that car do its job. Well, you need the key to start it up. Without the key, it’s not going anywhere. For the store, it’s money. If you don’t have any money, you’re not going anywhere. Then you need fuel, and that’s why you have a gas gauge on your car’s dashboard. The fuel for your business is your margins. If your margins start to slip, the store that is your vehicle is not going to go very far. With each mile, it dies slowly. Or maybe not so slowly. In your car, you have other critical dashboard indicators. You also need to be aware of these critical dashboard indicators in your business, like payroll, open to buy, etc.”
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