The five KPIs every small-business dashboard should track.

Monthly revenue is the single number that says whether the business sold more or less this month than last. It earns a slot because the next four KPIs all roll up underneath it. Compute it from the sales ledger as the sum of invoiced line items for the closed month, net of returns, in the currency on the books. One row, one filter, one SUM, a footnote naming the currency and any FX rule.

Gross margin is the share of every sale that survives the cost of what was sold — the simplest answer to whether each sale is profitable before overhead sits on top. It has to stay above zero before growth is worth paying for. Compute it as (revenue minus cost of goods sold) divided by revenue for the same closed month, with COGS pulled from the same sales ledger so revenue and cost always agree on every row. A 60% margin that slid to 45% over two quarters is the slip the dashboard is for.

Customer acquisition cost measures what the business spends on sales and marketing to win one new customer in a given month. It has to stay below gross margin per customer or every new sale loses money before any operating cost is paid. Compute it as total sales-and-marketing spend for the closed month divided by net new customers acquired in that month — gross adds minus cancellations. Channel-level CACs should sit beside the total so a single expensive channel is visible.

Cash conversion cycle is the number of days cash is tied up between paying for inputs and getting paid by customers — the difference between a profitable month and a cash-strapped one. Compute it as days inventory plus days receivables minus days payables, each component pulled from the same date-keyed cash ledger. The downward direction is the only one worth celebrating; an upward drift is the early warning to line up credit.

MRR is the run-rate of the subscription side of the business — the share of revenue that lands every month without a new sale being closed. It tells you whether the recurring side is growing, flat, or quietly shrinking from churn. Compute it as the sum of active subscription contract values on the first day of the closed month, normalised to monthly, with new and expansion MRR shown beside contraction and churn so the four movements are visible. The trend, not the level, is the point.