Most small companies know roughly how the month went. Few can say whether it went better or worse than the month before, and why. A one-page sheet fixes that without a dashboard, a new tool or an accountant's report.
This article is for an owner or manager who wants a short monthly routine built on sales and orders. If you want the version for advertising and website results, see a one-page monthly marketing report. For the delivery side, see a one-page monthly operations review. This sheet sits between them: it answers "is the business we are winning healthy?"
Pick five figures
Five is enough to see a pattern and few enough to read in two minutes. A sensible starting set for a company that sells services or made-to-order products:
- New enquiries: how many people or companies asked for a quote or a call this month.
- Orders won: how many of them (and earlier ones) became paid or confirmed work, with the total value.
- Repeat customers: how many orders came from people who had bought before.
- Unpaid invoices: the total value of invoices past their due date on the last day of the month.
- One cost line: the cost that worries you most, for example subcontractors, advertising or software subscriptions.
Change the list if your business differs. A shop may want footfall instead of enquiries; a consultancy may prefer booked days. The rule is that each figure should be something you can influence and can count the same way every time.
Name one source for each number
A number with no source gets argued about. Write next to each figure where it comes from:
- Enquiries: the shared inbox or the contact form, counted by label
- Orders won: the order list or the invoicing system
- Repeat customers: the same list, filtered by customer name
- Unpaid invoices: the overdue report in your invoicing tool, or a short list kept by hand
- Cost line: the bank statement or the bookkeeping export
If a figure takes more than ten minutes to get, simplify it. A rough number collected on time is more useful than an exact one collected late.
Build the sheet
Use a single page, either a document or a spreadsheet tab. Keep this layout:
| Figure | This month | Last month | Same month last year | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New enquiries | ||||
| Orders won (count and value) | ||||
| Repeat customers | ||||
| Unpaid invoices past due | ||||
| Cost line |
Leave the last-year column empty in the first year. After that, it protects you from reading a normal seasonal dip as a problem.
Do not add charts at the start. A table of five rows is quicker to read than a graphic, and you can add a small chart once you have six months of data.
Add one comment
Under the table, write one or two sentences in plain words. For example: "Enquiries are steady, but fewer became orders; three quotes went out later than a week." The comment should say what you think the numbers mean, not repeat them.
If you cannot explain a change, write that: "Unclear why repeat orders dropped; check with the three largest customers." An honest question is a good comment.
Make one decision
The sheet is only useful if it leads to a choice. Under the comment, write one decision, an owner and a date:
- "Send quotes within two working days. Owner: Marta. Review: next sheet."
- "Call the two customers with invoices over sixty days overdue. Owner: me. This week."
- "Pause the paid advertising for one month and watch enquiries."
One decision is enough. If you list five, nobody will do any. Next month, start by checking whether last month's decision was carried out.
Run it every month
Pick a fixed day, for example the third working day of the month, and block thirty minutes. The routine is:
- Collect the five figures from their named sources (fifteen minutes)
- Fill in last month's and last year's columns
- Write the comment and the decision (ten minutes)
- Save the sheet in a shared folder named by month, such as
2026-10 - Send it, or tell the team the decision, the same day
If you work with a partner or a bookkeeper, spend ten minutes together on the sheet. A second pair of eyes often notices the figure that has quietly changed.
Keep an archive
Store every sheet in one folder and never overwrite an old one. After six months, put the five figures of each month in a single row-per-month table. Trends such as slowly later payments or fewer repeat orders are invisible in one month but obvious across six.
The archive also helps when you need to explain the business to a bank, a new manager or a buyer: you can show how you actually run it.
Common mistakes
- Changing the five figures every month, so nothing can be compared
- Taking numbers from several places that disagree
- Writing a comment that only repeats the table
- Ending without a decision, or with too many
- Treating a single bad month as a trend
- Skipping the sheet in a busy month, which is when it matters most
Checklist
- Five figures, the same ones every month
- A named source for each figure
- Last month and last year next to this month
- One or two sentences of comment
- One decision with an owner and a date
- A fixed day and thirty minutes in the calendar
- Every sheet saved in a dated folder
Sources
- Practical guidance based on common small-business reporting practice, offered as a planning aid. The figures, layout and timings are starting points to adapt to your own company. No client results or market figures are claimed in this article.
