Do bad sales months often take you by surprise? If so, do not forget the power of flash reports — that is, snapshots of critical data for quick, timely viewing every day or week.

One specific way to use them is to track bookings vs. shippings. Doing so can help you determine what percentage of volume for certain months should be booked by specific dates. These reports are particularly useful if more than 30 days elapse between these activities.

Get super specific

Here is how your flash report might work: every workday, record the new orders taken (bookings) and the orders filled (shippings).

Sort the flash report by order date and subtotal the sales amounts at various points in time before the last day of the month.

Look at how many of the month’s shipped orders are booked 60, 45, 30, and 15 days before the end of the month. If you do not have this historical data, start recording it for at least three months to establish meaningful trends.

Once you know the timeframes of your bookings and shippings, expand this activity to your sales staff by displaying the totals of bookings and shippings by salesperson on the flash report. Use the percentage of business that ideally should be booked at certain time intervals to establish individual sales goals and compare your progress with these goals.

See the future

Do not wait until month’s end to discover that your sales were not up to your desired results. With flash reports, you can tell in advance that sales performance is lagging and have enough time to take corrective action. In addition, today’s business dashboard software can enable you to generate this data more quickly than ever. For further information about flash reports, and help developing your own that are specific to your company’s needs, please contact us.