Why your dashboard numbers never match
Every organisation has the same meeting. Sales says revenue was £4.2 million. Finance says £4.05 million. Both are right, and the meeting loses an hour.
It is usually a definition
Revenue can mean invoiced, paid or recognised. A customer can be anyone who ever bought, or anyone who bought in the last 12 months. Until those definitions are written down, every report quietly picks its own.
Three questions to ask
- What is the date? Order date, invoice date and payment date give three different months.
- What is excluded? Refunds, internal sales and test accounts all move totals.
- Who owns the number? If nobody does, everyone edits it.
The fix is dull
Write one-line definitions for your ten most-quoted numbers. Put an owner’s name beside each one. Show the definition on the dashboard itself. It takes a day, and it ends most of the arguments.
If a difference remains after that, it is probably a real bug, and now you can find it.
