Financial Metrics
Having a clear idea of how money moves in and out of our business is the basis of our need for financial reporting. Tracking our finances includes bookkeeping, budgeting and financial modeling, which helps us to:
- understand how we are spending money and where to cut costs
- identify growth opportunities
- communicate the health of our business to investors
This document covers when and why we need to report our finances and what we are tracking. For information on the tools we use to manage our finances and create our financial reports, see FinOps Tech Stack.
Management
The following team members are involved in the financial reporting process:
- CEO for budget updates, external reporting to investors
- Strategic Growth Lead for managing our financial reporting tools and model and insights on performance
- Heads of Engineering, Product and Revenue for management of their respective team’s financial and hiring needs
When to Report Finances & Why
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Internally: The Weekly Memo shares key metrics with the team to help everyone understand our performance. Monthly, quarterly and year-end reports help to assess our position and what levers we may need to pull to accelerate growth or pull back. Internal reporting will usually break down expenses and budget vs. actuals by team, in addition to any other metrics that have been identified to assess performance.
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Externally: Quarterly with investors so they can understand how our business is performing - our reports are usually compared agains their model of how they think our business should be performing. Investor reporting will usually include our P&L, balance sheet, higher-level financial model and key financial metrics related to our relationship or agreement.
Financial Metrics We Track
It is important to note that additional financial or business KPIs will be necessary as we grow, to help demonstrate the health and reach of our business.
| Metric | Why We Track & Source |
|---|---|
| Revenue | Measures how much money we are bringing in through sales of our product.Revenue provides insight into the performace of the business, including:Understanding Financial Health, which allows us to make intelligent decisions about resource allocation, pricing and other business issues.New OpportunitiesOperational Efficiency, by comparing revenue to expensesThis is a metric referenced both internally and externally. We may have more details internally than we share externally. Source(s): Revenue model (for forecast), P&L (actuals) |
| Annual Run Rate | An annual run rate is a way to estimate a company’s yearly financial performance based on a shorter period of data- it’s a quick and easy way to project annual performance, but it has its limitations since it assumes every month will be the same. Source: Monthly Recurring Revenue * 12 |
| Burn Rate | The rate at which a business spends its cash reserves to cover expenses. Burn rate helps us to assess how fast we are diminishing our reserves and if we need to adjust spending or revenue generation. In general, a high burn rate means we are spending our cash reserves quickly and may run out of money soon while a low burn rate means that we are spending at a slower pace and may reach profitability. Sometimes, burn rates will need to be contextualized, for example, if a company is purposefully running at a deficit or budgeting to zero each month. As a rule of thumb, burn rate should be kept low allowing for a runway of 6-12 months. Referenced internally and externally to investors. Burn Rate is a very common VC metric. Source: Calculation of total capital and monthly expenses. We look at the net burn (total amount of money that company loses monthly) on a 3-month rolling average. Expressed as a number. |
| Transaction Fees to Date | Cumulative total of our transaction fees from all sources. Source: P&L |
| Outstanding Invoices to Date | Summary of how much money is owed to us. Also, “outstanding” should not be confused with “overdue”. Source: Accounts Receivable Summary Report |
The section on our metrics will be updated to include more explanation on why we track what we track and why we might see what we see with our finances. In the meantime, an explanation on why we might see a shift in net burn MoM, which arose from a question on slack.
Financial Reporting Timeline
| Report | Due Date |
|---|---|
| Quarterly | |
| Unaudited financial statements | Within 45 days after quarter end |
| Quarterly certificate | Within 45 days after quarter end |
| Covenant compliance worksheet | Within 45 days after quarter end |
| CPC contract revenue report | Within 45 days after quarter end |
| Annual | |
| Operating budget | By November 30 |
| Financial statements | Within 120 days after fiscal year end |
| Annual certificate | Within 120 days after fiscal year end |
| Covenant compliance worksheet | Within 120 days after fiscal year end |
| Loan proceeds report | Within 120 days after fiscal year end |
| CPC contract revenue report | Within 120 days after fiscal year end |
| As Needed | |
| Documents delivered to Board | Within 10 days |
| Material litigation notices | Promptly |
| Material adverse effect notices | Promptly |
| Loan purpose change notices | Promptly |
| Default notices | Promptly |
| One Time | |
| Final loan proceeds report | Within 120 days after loans repaid |