Building management reports: custom layouts, tracking KPIs, and scheduled delivery

If you only look at your numbers at year-end, you are basically driving while staring in the rear-view mirror. Management reports fix that. They give you a regular, repeatable way to see what is happening in your business right now, what is likely to happen next, and what you need to do about it.

The good news is you do not need a fancy “finance department” to get useful reporting. You need 3 things: a layout that matches how you run the business, KPIs that actually mean something, and a delivery routine that happens without you chasing it every month.

This is how you build it.

1) Start with clean data, or reporting will always feel pointless

Before you even touch layouts and dashboards, you need consistent bookkeeping. Management reporting is only as good as what you feed it.

A few simple habits make a big difference:

  • Reconcile your bank accounts weekly (daily if you have lots of transactions).
  • Code income and costs to the right categories, not “general” buckets.
  • Keep your customer and supplier invoices up to date, so debtor and creditor numbers are real.
  • Close off each month properly so you are comparing like-for-like.

If you use Xero, getting the basics right (chart of accounts, bank feeds, and daily workflow) is the foundation for everything that comes later. A useful starting point is your chart of accounts setup and day-to-day routine:

2) Custom layouts: build reports that match how you actually manage the business

A “standard” Profit and Loss is fine, but it is rarely perfect. Most business owners want to see performance in a way that reflects real-world decisions, for example:

  • By revenue stream (service lines, product types, property blocks, regions)
  • By cost centre (teams, sites, projects)
  • By ownership split (if you run multiple ventures)
  • With the right headings (so you can spot issues quickly)

Custom layouts usually come down to 3 building blocks:

Chart of accounts that makes sense

If your expenses are lumped together, your reports will be vague. If they are too granular, your reports become noise. The goal is “clear enough to act”.

For example, instead of “Marketing”, you might want separate lines for:

  • Paid ads
  • Website and SEO
  • Software subscriptions
  • Sponsorships and events

That way, when profit dips, you can see what moved.

Tracking categories or cost centres

If you need reporting by site, property, department, or project, you need a structure that captures it every time. This is especially important in property and service charge accounting, where you are often reporting across multiple properties and cost headings.

Useful reads if you are in the property world:

A management pack template you reuse every month

The best management reports are boring in the best way. Same format. Same sections. Same timing. That is how you spot trends.

If you work with an accountant, ask them to create a consistent monthly pack that includes commentary, not just numbers.

3) Tracking KPIs: pick measures that drive decisions, not vanity metrics

A KPI is only useful if it changes what you do next.

You can build a solid KPI set by covering 4 areas:

Profitability

  • Gross profit margin (what you keep after direct costs)
  • Net profit margin (what you keep after everything)
  • Overheads as a percentage of revenue

Cash flow and working capital

This is where many UK businesses feel the pressure. One survey reported 62% of UK small businesses were owed money from unpaid invoices, with an average of £21,400 outstanding. 

Cash-focused KPIs to track:

  • Debtor days (how long customers take to pay you)
  • Creditor days (how long you take to pay suppliers)
  • Cash runway (how many weeks or months of cash you have at current burn)

Efficiency

  • Revenue per employee (or per billable person)
  • Billable utilisation (if you sell time)
  • Average job or project margin (if you work on projects)

Business-specific drivers

This is the bit most people miss. Your KPIs should reflect how you make money.

Examples:

  • Ecommerce: contribution margin by product, return rate, ad spend efficiency
  • Trades: job profitability, labour efficiency, materials variance
  • Property: occupancy, arrears, service charge collection rate, planned versus actual maintenance spend

4) Scheduled delivery: make reporting automatic, so it actually happens

Most businesses do not fail because they lack data. They fail because they do not look at it regularly.

Your aim is a simple rhythm:

  • Weekly: cash and receivables (so you stay in control)
  • Monthly: full management pack (so you can steer the business)
  • Quarterly: deeper KPI trends and planning (so you can invest confidently)

Can you schedule reports in Xero?

In practice, Xero’s native reporting is great for building and saving report templates, but fully automated email delivery often needs an add-on. Xero users regularly ask for automatic generation and emailing of reports as a built-in feature.

If you want proper scheduled packs (for example, a PDF pack landing in your inbox every month), reporting tools such as Fathom support scheduled reports and automated report creation using templates.

That is usually the best setup: Xero for clean bookkeeping, then a reporting layer for presentation and delivery.

If you are already investing in automation elsewhere, it is worth looking at:

5) A simple monthly management report pack you can copy

If you want a straightforward “owner-friendly” pack, start with this:

  1. Summary dashboard (1 page)
    • Revenue, gross profit, net profit
    • Cash balance and runway
    • Debtor days and biggest overdue invoices
    • Top 3 KPIs that matter most in your business
  2. Profit and Loss
    • Current month
    • Year to date
    • Versus last year and versus budget (if you have one)
  3. Balance sheet snapshot
    • Cash, debtors, creditors, tax owed, loans
  4. Cash flow view
    • What came in, what went out, and what is coming next
  5. Commentary and actions
    • What changed, why it changed, what you are doing next month

Keep it consistent for 6 months and you will be amazed how quickly patterns appear.

How FHP Accounting can help you get this running properly

If you want management reports that actually help you make decisions (not just a pile of numbers), you can outsource the heavy lifting and still stay in control.

If you want a management reporting setup that fits your business, with KPIs you will actually use and a scheduled pack delivered on time each month, book a chat with FHP Accounting here: