Operations reporting is extremely important for a tech startup. These comprehensive reports are essential in providing you with a short-term snapshot of all of the financial details of what’s happening in your company. Among other benefits, they allow you to better plan long-term goals, put out fires before they start, and have a clearer idea of your business’s position in the market.
But the life of a startup CEO is hectic. Too often operations reporting for a startup is less urgent than other daily tasks – meetings, shipping deadlines, and more. When too many tasks are competing for your time (but operations reporting is still as necessary as always), virtual operations reporting is the solution. Here’s how it benefits you.
Identify and Track Trends
Do you have a clear big picture view of your company? Or do you fly by the seat of your pants based on what you feel is going on?
Being able to identify trends is crucial as far as running your company in the right direction—not into the ground. If you don’t have any long-term or short-term reporting of your company’s financial accounts, then you need operations reporting for startups. Operations reports provide you with a short-term view of the direction your company is heading. When combined with a long-term view of your financial goals, you can more accurately and efficiently course-correct your company’s trajectory when need be.
Operations reporting is often underestimated in terms of the impact it could have on your company. Without it, you won’t be able to identify or track trends in terms of where your company is headed. Instead, you’ll discover that you’re not growing your P & L as quickly as you thought until it’s too late, or that your cash on hand doesn’t actually add up to as many operating days as you thought. Your ability to track trends is crucial to your company’s ability to succeed.
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Better Accuracy to Develop Financial Goals
When developing your financial goals for the future, you need an accurate snapshot of your current status as a company. Without it, you won’t have a baseline on which to base your ability to reach your end goals. Without a baseline, you won’t be able to accurately measure how close you are to achieving your goals.
Developing your financial goals is a big moment for any startup. Operations reporting for a startup can streamline this process by providing you with an honest assessment of your current status. Without it, you could be setting goals that are unattainable or too easy.
Proactive Problem Solving
Too often startups fail due to a severe lack of cash flow or various other financial upsets. Taking advantage of virtual operations reporting for startups is one way to prevent this from happening. By accurately identifying trends and providing you with a clear snapshot of your current financial status, operations reporting can help you stop trends that will cause a problem.
For example, without operations reporting you may not notice if your cash on hand has been dropping for weeks now. But with great operations reporting, you can spot the trend within a few days, identify what’s causing the problem and fix it before you find yourself with no cash flow and overdue bills to pay.
Life as a startup can be fraught with tension. There are periods of instability. Rapid growth, or slowdowns. When you first start out, some of your plans may fall through, leaving you to quickly come up with a plan B. Operations reporting for startups can help you remain balanced financially. Without it, your finances could be subject to the same up-and-down as your company.
Improved Communication with Stakeholders
How often do you update your stakeholders? If you asked them right now, would they be able to tell you the current financial state of your company? Would they know performance from the past quarter?
Too often stakeholders are left out of the communication loop. They don’t know what’s happening with the finances, whether or not you’re reaching your goals, and what type of ROI they’re receiving. Virtual operations reporting for startups can help with this. Your virtual operations reporting company can create custom reports just for stakeholders. They can be tailored towards their investments and provide them with the accurate snapshot they need to feel confident.
By improving communication with investors, you can actually build up more funding for your startup. After all, if you want someone to feel more comfortable reinvesting or investing more in your company, then you need to provide them with proof that the company is worth it.
Save Time and Increase Productivity
Your operations reporting for a startup should include metrics on employee productivity. You can record the number of billable hours an employee puts in to gain a better understanding of how productive they are throughout the day. After all, you’re paying for their time and you want to make sure you’re receiving a good ROI as well. When you customize an operations report to your needs, you can identify areas where your team efficiency needs to increase. Perhaps your cash flow is stunted because you’re paying five employees when you really only have enough work for four.
No matter what you need in an operations report for your startup, contact Global Shared Services today. We can help you identify trends, develop financial goals, and prepare for your future. Growing a startup is hard enough- take financial reports off your plate with virtual operations reporting for startups.