Question: I have a question about the KPI tracker and want to make sure I’m tracking revenue correctly.

When a new project is booked, should I record the full value of the project at the time it’s signed, or should I only record the revenue that is actually invoiced or received during that month?

I also have payments coming in from projects that were booked in previous months — and even some from last year. Should those payments be included as revenue in the month they’re received, even though the project itself was booked earlier?

Lastly, I’m not currently charging a separate implementation fee. How would you recommend I account for that within the tracker?

I just want to make sure I’m using the tracker as intended and that it gives me an accurate picture of both the projects I’m booking and the revenue actually coming into the business.

Answer: For the KPI tracker, the easiest way to think about it is that we’re tracking two different things: what you’re selling and what you’re actually collecting.

Under Sales KPIs, “Design Fee Sold” is where I want you to record the full value of the design fee when the project is booked/sold. So your new project would show as $17,000 in Design Fee Sold for this month, regardless of whether the client is paying that amount all at once or over several installments.

This helps us see the actual value of the projects you're signing and the strength of your sales pipeline.

Then, under Financial KPIs, we’re tracking the revenue that is actually collected during that month. So if you collect $5,000 toward that $17K design fee this month, you would record $5,000 under Design Fee Revenue. When the next payment comes in, that amount gets recorded in the month it is collected.

The same applies to payments coming in from older projects. Even if the project was booked last year, if you collect a payment from it this month, include that amount in this month’s revenue under the appropriate category. We want the Financial KPI section to give us a clear picture of the cash/revenue actually coming into the business each month.

And for implementation fees, if you aren’t currently charging a separate implementation fee, simply leave that column at $0 for now. We can start tracking that separately once you introduce it into your pricing model. If you're currently earning revenue for implementation but it's built into another fee, keep tracking it under the category you're currently invoicing it as rather than trying to separate it retroactively.

So, in short: Sales = what you booked/sold. Financials = what you actually collected that month.