You asked: What should we include on our financial dashboard?

By distilling your in-depth financial reports into key performance indicators, a comprehensive financial dashboard serves as a crucial tool to help school leaders and Trustees make sound decisions based on real-time and accurate financial data as well as a solid understanding of your long-term financial health.

Not all financial dashboards are equally useful, however.  To ensure that your Board receives a complete representation of your financial health, your dashboard should include the following indicators:

• Cash on Hand: Should show both current and year-end projected cash on hand to capture fluctuations in the timing of certain income streams and expenditures and show how many days the cash will last.
• Working Capital Ratio: Should show both current and total Liabilities vs. Assets.  A higher current working capital ratio is preferred as it measures the school's ability to meet short term obligations.  Total debt ratio is measured by dividing the total Assets by total Liabilities.
• Revenue Impact of Budgeted vs. Actual Enrollment, includes both general education and special education students: Enrollment represents the bulk of revenues where (depending on total expenses) significant variances from projected student counts can have major budget implications.
• Forecasted Surplus or Defecit for revenues minus expenses: Supports informed decision-making today based on where numbers are headed at year-end.

These key indicators will help you answer the imperative questions: What will my financials look like at the end of the year?  How long will our cash really last? How does long-term debt impact the future of our school?  What is the financial impact of over/under enrollment?  Knowing the answers to these questions will lead to better informed decisions, accountability, and sustainability.

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