Monday, April 3, 2017

What The Heck Is A Financial Dashboard?

At a recent weekly editorial meeting, we discussed the F&I (finance and insurance) issue and moved onto the subject of pricing strategies for our industry.

One of our writers suggested that to best price your services, you must fully understand the costs to operate your business. To make matters even more difficult, YOUR costs are unique to your market and circumstances. I wish we were able to just tell all LCT readers there’s a standardized pricing model; unfortunately, that’s not the case.

The writer did call out a really smart operator who uses a customized dashboard to track all of his expenses, and my first thought was, what’s a financial “dashboard?” So, I looked it up on Wikipedia and now I will share this with you!

Dashboards often provide at-a-glance views of KPIs (key performance indicators) relevant to a particular objective or business process (e.g. sales, marketing, human resources, or production). In real-world terms, “dashboard” is another name for “progress report” or “report.”

Often, the “dashboard” is displayed on a web page linked to a database which allows the report to be constantly updated.

Digital dashboards allow managers to monitor the contribution of the various departments in their organization. To gauge exactly how well an organization is performing overall, digital dashboards allow you to capture and report specific data points from each department within the organization, thus providing a “snapshot” of performance.

  • Benefits of using digital dashboards include: 
  • Visual presentation of performance measures
  • Ability to identify and correct negative trends
  • Measure efficiencies/inefficiencies
  • Ability to generate detailed reports showing new trends
  • Ability to make more informed decisions based on collected business intelligence
  • Align strategies and organizational goals
  • Save time compared to running multiple reports

Dashboards track your expenses in real time and will compare and contrast trends in your overhead and sales. They are visually easy to follow, which means if reading traditional financials is painful for you, a Dashboard is your saving grace. Google it and get on board. This is a must-have for all operators.

Keywords

business management   finance   financial planning   How To   LCT Publisher   profits   Sara Eastwood-Richardson   

 

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