A starter KPI set for a small business

Five measures, what each one tells you, and how to set a target and a floor. This is a starting point, not a rulebook. Swap any of them for something that fits your trade better.

ExploreKPI

1. Revenue per week

Monthly revenue reacts too slowly. By the time a bad month shows up, it is over. Weekly revenue gives you four chances a month to notice.

Target: your plan for the period, split by week (watch seasonality)
Floor: the weakest ordinary week from the last year

2. Gross margin, %

Revenue minus the direct cost of what you sold, divided by revenue. It catches supplier price rises and over-discounting before they reach the bottom line.

Target: what your pricing is designed to deliver
Floor: 5 to 7 points below target is a common starting point

3. Repeat customer rate, %

Share of customers in the period who had bought before. If you have no loyalty system, use a proxy: repeat bookings, returning card numbers, or asking at the till for one week a quarter.

Target: a few points above your current level
Floor: your current level minus a few points

4. Weeks of cash

Cash in the bank divided by average weekly fixed costs. The most boring number on the list and the one that ends businesses.

Target: 12 weeks or more
Floor: 6 weeks

5. One operational measure

The thing that most often goes wrong in your business. Late deliveries, food waste, rework, no-shows. Pick one.

For "lower is better" measures, the floor sits above the target. Late deliveries: target under 3%, floor 8%.

How to run it

Update weekly where you can, monthly at least
Look at red measures first, amber second, skip green
Change a target only at the start of a period, never mid-way to make a month look better

Tooling

A spreadsheet works for this. If you want the colours, the history and a single health score without building it yourself, ExploreKPI does exactly this setup: every KPI gets a target and a minimum, measures come from an industry catalogue, and reports can be imported from PDFs or photos. The free plan covers one business and 10 KPIs, which fits the set above with room to spare.