Flash Report » Overview

Importance of Creating a Flash Report

A Flash Report represents a succinct, regular summary of crucial financial and operational data points. This single-page document enables company leaders to swiftly review key performance indicators (KPIs). Its ideal frequency is weekly, encompassing the shortest practical duration. The report adheres to the “KISS” principle (Keep It Simple and Straightforward), taking around 30 minutes to prepare.

The report is divided into three main areas:

1. Liquidity
2. Productivity
3. Profitability

Flash Reports offer a high-level view of business changes, with data reliability aiming for 80-90% accuracy. While not entirely precise, this level of accuracy facilitates effective decision-making. For detailed financial accuracy, businesses can refer to their monthly financial statements.

Flash Reports are a rough measure of change. They are not meant to be 100% accurate. If the data is 80-90% accurate, then it will be enough to manage the business. For complete accuracy, the firm can defer to its monthly financial statements, which come out 2-4 weeks after the month closes. For management purposes, it is timeliness and “mostly accurate” is good enough. If one were to wait for complete accuracy, then the competitive landscape may have change so completely that the “accurate” financial statements may not be of any use.

Flash Report Creation Guidelines

1. Frequency: Weekly or bi-weekly (to match payroll cycles).
2. Responsible Parties: CFO or Controller collaborates with business leaders to select Productivity metrics, which often requires input from both operations and finance teams. Data collection for the three sections is typically delegated to accounting staff.
3. Content Overview:
   • Liquidity: Displays the company’s cash position and capacity to fulfill financial obligations.
   • Productivity: Monitors operational KPIs linked to financial results.
   • Profitability: Provides a preliminary measure of the company’s earnings during the reporting period.

By utilizing Flash Reports, businesses acquire prompt and practical insights for better decision-making, enhanced performance, and competitive agility.

The Productivity Section gives an indication of the key performance metrics of the business. These metrics are tied to operations. They are also a way to combine the operations of a company to its financial performance.

The Profitability Section gives a rough indication of how much money the company has made during the period of measure.

Existing Financial Leaders: It is important to emphasize again that complete accuracy is not necessary. Timeliness, however, is absolutely necessary.

Management can work off of 80-90% accuracy. What they need to focus on is the change in trends over a period of time.

Flash Report Template

Click to download: Flash Report