Twelve is enough to see the whole business in five minutes, and few enough that each number gets a question when it moves. This guide lists the 12 with their formulas and source, shows a worked Monday report for a Dubai trading company, and covers the set-up mistakes that make dashboards untrustworthy.
Which 12 numbers should a CEO see every Monday?
The 12 cover four questions: are we selling, are we making money on it, do we have the cash, and are we delivering. Each one has a fixed formula and a single source, so nobody argues about where it came from.
| # | KPI | Formula | Source module |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sales vs target | Last week's invoiced sales before VAT ÷ weekly target | Sales |
| 2 | Gross margin % | (Sales − cost of goods sold) ÷ sales, last week | Sales and inventory costing |
| 3 | Open orders | Value of confirmed sales orders not yet delivered | Sales orders |
| 4 | Cash in bank | Reconciled bank balances, all accounts | Banking |
| 5 | Lowest forecast cash | The lowest weekly closing balance in the next 13 weeks | Cash forecast (receivables, payables, payroll, tax) |
| 6 | Overdue receivables over 60 days | Overdue amount older than 60 days ÷ total receivables | Accounts receivable |
| 7 | Days sales outstanding (DSO) | Receivables ÷ last 90 days' sales including VAT × 90 | Accounts receivable and sales |
| 8 | Payables due in 14 days | Supplier invoices due in the next 14 days | Accounts payable |
| 9 | Stock days | Inventory value ÷ last 90 days' cost of goods sold × 90 | Inventory |
| 10 | Slow-moving stock % | Value of items with no sale in 180 days ÷ total inventory value | Inventory |
| 11 | Payroll cost % of sales | Last month's total payroll cost ÷ last month's sales | HR and payroll, and sales |
| 12 | On-time in-full delivery (OTIF) | Order lines delivered complete and on the promised date ÷ all lines due | Sales and warehouse |
A services or project business swaps a few of these. Open orders become contract backlog, stock days become unbilled work, and OTIF becomes milestones met. The four questions stay the same.
Why these 12, and not revenue and profit alone?
Revenue and profit tell you what happened last month. By the time a monthly profit report shows a problem, it is four to six weeks old. The 12 Monday numbers are early signals: each one moves before profit does.
Sales and margin (1 to 3). Sales against target shows the pace. Gross margin shows whether the pace is being bought with discounts. Open orders show next month's sales already secured, which matters more than last week's figure when the pipeline thins.
Cash (4 to 8). Profit is not cash. The bank balance tells you where you are, and can include deposits that IAS 7 treats as cash equivalents: short-term, highly liquid investments with an insignificant risk of change in value, normally maturing three months or less from when they were acquired. The lowest point in the 13-week forecast tells you whether you will need the overdraft before the next big customer pays. Overdue receivables and DSO show whether customers are paying more slowly, and payables due shows what is about to leave.
Stock (9 and 10). For a trading business, inventory is often the largest use of cash. Stock days rising while sales are flat means buying ran ahead of demand. Slow-moving stock is cash that may never come back at full value.
People and delivery (11 and 12). Payroll is usually the largest fixed cost, so its share of sales shows whether headcount is keeping pace with the business. OTIF is the customer's view: the first sign of a stock, warehouse or transport problem that will show up in lost orders later.
What does a Monday report look like? A worked example
A Dubai trading company sells building and household products to retailers and contractors. Its weekly sales target is AED 2,000,000, and its sales over the last 90 days were AED 24,000,000 before VAT, with cost of goods sold of AED 18,000,000. This is the report the CEO opens on Monday 26 October 2026:
| # | KPI | This week | Workings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sales vs target | 92% | AED 1,840,000 ÷ 2,000,000 |
| 2 | Gross margin | 25.0% | (1,840,000 − 1,380,000) ÷ 1,840,000 |
| 3 | Open orders | AED 3,100,000 | Confirmed, not yet delivered |
| 4 | Cash in bank | AED 3,250,000 | Reconciled to Friday's statements |
| 5 | Lowest forecast cash | AED 1,100,000 in week 7 | From the 13-week forecast |
| 6 | Overdue over 60 days | 12.0% | AED 1,150,000 ÷ 9,600,000 |
| 7 | DSO | 34 days | 9,600,000 ÷ 25,200,000 × 90 |
| 8 | Payables due in 14 days | AED 2,400,000 | From supplier due dates |
| 9 | Stock days | 39 days | 7,800,000 ÷ 18,000,000 × 90 |
| 10 | Slow-moving stock | 7.9% | AED 620,000 ÷ 7,800,000 |
| 11 | Payroll cost % of sales | 14.4% | AED 1,150,000 ÷ 8,000,000 (September) |
| 12 | OTIF | 92.3% | 1,412 ÷ 1,530 order lines |
Read it in this order.
Cash is fine today but tight in seven weeks. AED 3,250,000 in the bank, but AED 2,400,000 is due to suppliers within 14 days and the forecast falls to AED 1,100,000 in week 7. The CEO's question: which customer receipts does the forecast assume, and how sure are they?
Collections are the lever. AED 1,150,000, or 12.0% of receivables, is more than 60 days overdue. If the forecast doesn't already count on it, collecting half before week 7 would lift the low point by AED 575,000.
DSO uses sales including VAT. Receivables include 5% VAT, so DSO divides by AED 25,200,000 (24,000,000 × 1.05), giving 34 days. Dividing by sales before VAT gives 36 days, which overstates collection time by two days. In Saudi Arabia, at 15% VAT, the same mistake overstates DSO by 15%.
Sales are 8% under target, but margin held at 25%. The team is not discounting to close the gap. With AED 3,100,000 of open orders, the CEO asks the sales manager whether the shortfall is timing or lost business.
OTIF at 92.3% needs a look. 118 order lines were late or incomplete. If the misses cluster on a few items, compare them with the slow-moving list: the company may be holding the wrong stock.
All figures are illustrative.
How do you set up a Monday dashboard that people trust?
A dashboard is only trusted if the numbers agree with the accounts. Follow these steps.
- Write down each formula. One line per KPI, approved by the finance manager, covering what is included (VAT or not, credit notes, intercompany sales).
- Name one source per number. Sales from the sales ledger, not from a spreadsheet the sales team keeps.
- Close the week on Friday. Invoices posted, bank reconciled, deliveries confirmed. A Monday dashboard built on half-posted data starts arguments, not decisions.
- Show the trend, not just the figure. Each KPI next to the last eight weeks, so a one-off week isn't mistaken for a trend.
- Set a threshold for each KPI. For example, DSO above 45 days or OTIF below 95% turns the figure red.
- Give each KPI an owner. The person who explains the number when it turns red.
- Review the list once a year. Drop numbers nobody acts on; add one if a new risk appears.
Before the first live Monday, check:
What does HYP see at owner-managed companies?
In owner-managed companies across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, our implementation team often finds the CEO's Monday figures assembled by hand. The finance manager spends Sunday exporting reports from three systems into a spreadsheet, and the numbers in the CEO's pack don't match the numbers in the ERP because they were taken at different times.
Another common pattern is too many numbers. A dashboard with 40 tiles gets opened in the first month and ignored after that. The CEO goes back to asking the finance manager for "the usual figures" on WhatsApp.
The companies that use dashboards well keep them short, take every number from the system of record, and close the week properly on Friday so Monday's figures are final. The weekly management meeting then starts from the dashboard, and each red number has an owner ready to explain it.
In HYP, the executive dashboard draws sales, margin, cash, receivables, payables, stock and payroll figures from the same database the accounts are kept in, so the CEO's numbers agree with the finance team's. See how it works on our For Executives page.
Related reading: for building the forecast behind KPI 5, see Cash Flow Forecasting for SMEs: A 13-Week Model You Can Start This Month. For bringing overdue receivables down, see Customer Credit Limits and Overdue Accounts: A Collections Routine for Distributors.