The ten numbers to check every week

A dashboard with twenty indicators never gets read. Ten get read in fifteen minutes, provided each one has a precise source and a possible action. Here are the ten, each with the report it comes from. They are ten rather than twelve because two of the usual twelve cannot be corrected on a weekly scale: those move to the monthly read.

The ten, with their sources

All of them come out of your till if sales are recorded line by line. The third column matters most: it is what makes the read repeatable.

The indicator	What it tells you	Where it comes from
Turnover	The raw volume of the week.	Sales report, period total.
Ticket count	How many customers came through.	Sales report, number of transactions.
Average basket	What each trip leaves behind.	Turnover divided by tickets.
Items per ticket	One item or five per customer.	Sales report, lines divided by tickets.
Gross margin	What is left after cost price.	Margin report, if cost prices are entered.
Top 10 sellers	What actually carries the business.	Best-sellers report, by quantity and by value.
Out-of-stock items	What you could not sell.	List of products below the reorder point.
Cash variance	The quality of your takings.	Day close, counted drawer against total.
Sales per user	What each person does, each shift.	Report by user.
Payment mix	Share of cash, card and other channels.	Report by payment method.

If one of those ten does not exist in your till, it is not the indicator to drop but the source to create. A missing margin simply means cost prices are not entered at goods-in, and that is a habit rather than a missing feature.

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The four that get misread

These regularly produce the wrong conclusion, and always in the same direction.

• Turnover on its own: It rises when you cut prices and it rises when you sell better. Without margin beside it the two look identical, and one of them is making you poorer.
• Average basket during a promotion: A promotion lowers it by construction, because it attracts short trips. Read alone, it will make you stop a profitable campaign. The detail is in our piece on https://blog.bellocommerce.com/en/raise-your-average-basket/.
• Top 10 by quantity: The best-selling product is almost never the one earning most. Read the ranking twice: by quantity, then by margin, and compare the two lists.
• Sales per user: They depend first on the shift worked. Comparing a Saturday afternoon with a Tuesday morning says nothing about people, only about hours.

The ritual, fifteen minutes

Same day, same hour, same order. Repetition produces the reading, not depth of analysis.

1. Pull the ten figures for the week just gone, and the same ten for the week before beside them.
2. Circle anything that moved more than ten per cent in either direction. Ignore the rest this week.
3. For each circled figure, write a cause in one line: weather, public holiday, stockout, promotion, new competitor.
4. Choose one single action for the coming week. Only one: that is what makes the effect readable next time.
5. Write it all on one page, paper or file. Twelve weeks of those pages beat any dashboard.

Step 3 is what turns figures into management. An indicator that moves with no written cause will be forgotten, and the same movement will surprise you again in a month.

What changes the reading in Morocco

The week is not regular. Friday, weekly market days, Ramadan and the two Eids move volume massively and predictably. Comparing a Ramadan week to the one before says nothing; comparing it to the same Ramadan week last year says everything. So keep your weekly pages: after a year they become your only seasonal reference.

Then the share of cash. In a very cash-heavy business, the payment mix and cash variance are more informative than elsewhere, because they move together: a week where the card share rises and variance falls does not signal better discipline, only less change handed over. Read the two side by side.

The three to add once a month

Too slow for a week, indispensable over a month.

• Stock rotation: what has been sitting in the store room too long.
• Margin by product family, not only overall.
• Customers who have not returned, if your sales are attached to records.

Mistakes to avoid

• Twenty indicators. A table too long does not get read, so it serves nothing.
• Reading without comparing. A figure alone means nothing; the gap against last week is what speaks.
• Comparing to a sector average. It comes from another country, another size and another range.
• Looking at turnover without margin. It is the most common way to congratulate yourself while losing money.
• Changing three things at once after the read. You will not know which produced the effect.

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Frequently asked questions

Which indicators should a small shop track?

Ten are enough: turnover, ticket count, average basket, items per ticket, gross margin, top 10 sellers, out-of-stock items, cash variance, sales per user and payment mix. Each must come from a specific report in your till, or you will not be able to reproduce it every week.

How often should I look at them?

Once a week, the same day, fifteen minutes. Regularity matters more than depth: twelve comparable weekly readings are worth far more than one very detailed quarterly analysis nobody repeats.

What should I compare my figures against?

Your own previous weeks, and the same period last year for anything seasonal. Published sector averages come from other markets, other sizes and other ranges: they tell you nothing actionable.

Why is margin indispensable?

Because the other nine indicators can all improve while you lose money: you only have to sell more by cutting prices. Margin is the one indicator that makes the rest interpretable, and it requires cost prices to be entered at goods-in.

Do I need a complicated dashboard?

No. One page a week, paper or file, with the ten figures, last week’s beside them and one line of cause for whatever moved. After twelve weeks that stack of pages is more useful than any automatic dashboard.

What to take away

Pick ten figures, know where each comes from, read them the same day each week beside the previous week’s, and write only a cause and an action. That fifteen-minute ritual beats a complete dashboard consulted three times a year, because it produces the one thing that matters: a comparable series, in your shop, across your season.

Read next

Other practical guides on the same subject:

• Average basket: measure it, then move it
• Cash variance: where it comes from, in order
• Doing a stock take without closing the shop
• How a cash register actually works