A Report Card for Your Business Financials

Do you remember the days when you got a report card from school? Now that you have a business, your business has grades as well.  It’s up to you to calculate them.  Here are some grades or key performance indicators that you can compute for your business to give it a report card of its own.

Financial Grades

How successful is your business from a financial standpoint? These financial ratios can help you give yourself a grade.

Working Capital

This is the difference between current assets like cash, receivables and inventory and its current liabilities such as accounts payable and credit card debt. It measures the organizations ability to meet its current obligations.  A 2 to 1 ratio will get you an A+.

Return on equity

This ratio measures profitability as it relates to the investment or money you have tied up in your business. The formula is net income / average equity. An ROE of 15 percent or more is an “A” for your business report card.

Return on assets

This ratio measures profitability as it relates to your business assets. The formula is net income / total assets. An ROA of five percent or more is an “A” for your business report card.

Asset turnover

This ratio measures efficient use of your business assets. The formula is sales / total assets. This number should be high for low margin businesses and low for high margin businesses.

Profitability Grades

How profitable is your business?  You might know your bottom line number, but there’s more to it.

Gross profit margin

This ratio measures the financial health of a company as it relates to how much of every revenue dollar is available to cover overhead. Calculate it as follows: (revenue – cost of goods sold) / revenue. The value will be different depending on what industry you’re in, but some say a range of 25 to 35 percent is normal for small business.

Net profit margin

Net profit margin measures how profitable your business is in relation to the amount of sales you have. As an example, a business that can make $50K in profits on $500,000 in revenue is more healthy than one that can make $50K profits on $3 million in revenue. The formula is net income / total sales, and although it depends on the industry, a net profit margin over 10 percent is considered an “A.”

Report cards were important in school, and they’re even more important in business.  If you’d like us to set up one for your business with specific metrics for your industry, let us know.