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Balance sheet indices
Balance sheet indices

Understanding the dashboard and how to make changes to the information available to view.

Jacqui Sullivan avatar
Written by Jacqui Sullivan
Updated over a week ago

In the Cloud Accounting dashboard, information relating to the financial statement ratios is displayed. Clicking on Dashboard configuration opens the window where you can customize the instructions.

Attention: This button is visible to the superuser, the first active user when purchasing a new subscription.

Specifically, the instruction ” kpi: formula: ytd: title ” displays, according to the information indicated, the revenues and cost of sales, the return on sales, the operating result, the value of cash and cash equivalents with or without the value of inventories, the degree of financial solidity of the company, the value of debit or credit VAT. These indices can be customized by modifying the pre-set formula.

After the kpi command : the instruction is composed as follows:

  1. In the first position it is necessary to indicate the formula. In the formulas it is possible to use the basic operators +, -, *, / and the constants that represent the balance sheet balances of the account categories (click here to view the complete list).

  2. In the second position it is necessary to indicate the command ytd or mtd (if not indicated, the latter is the default). With the ytd command, data from the current exercise start date up to the current day date will be taken into consideration. With the mtd command, data from the start date of the current month up to the date of the current day will be taken into consideration. The same date range will also be applied for the calculation with budget data and for the calculation of the same formula but replacing only the year with that of the previous year.

  3. In the third position you can possibly indicate a string to replace the default title. Each position is delimited by a colon ” :

Some examples of balance sheet ratios

Revenues from sales

Displays the value of sales taking into account the balances of the accounts belonging to the Production Value category and relating to posted transactions.

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi: -turnover: ytd: Revenues from sales (£)


Cost of sales

Displays the cost of goods sold taking into account the balances of the accounts belonging to the Cost of sales category and related to posted transactions.

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi: cost_of_sales: ytd: Cost of sales (£)


Return on sales (%)

Displays the profitability of sales taking into account the costs incurred to produce and / or sell the products. In practice, it represents the net revenue achieved for each pound of turnover.
The values ​​displayed as a percentage indicate that the index is:
Excellent if> 5/6%
Good if> 3/4%
Sufficient if> 1/2%
Critical if <1%

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi: (turnover + (cost_of_sales + capacity_costs + staff_costs)) * 100 / turnover: ytd: Return on sales (%)


Operating result (£)

It represents profit (if positive) or loss (if negative), and is given by the difference between revenues from sales and the cost of sales, excluding financial, extraordinary and tax costs.

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi 🙁 turnover + (cost_of_sales + capacity_costs + staff_costs)): ytd: Operating income (£)


Operating result (£)

Represents the result of the exercise. It is positive if it is a profit, it is negative if it is a loss.

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi: -profit_and_loss: ytd: Operating result (£)


Availability (£)

Represents the value of liquid assets such as cash, bank… .. taking into consideration the balance of the accounts belonging to the category of liquid assets and considering only the transactions already accounted for.

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi: bank_and_cash_balances: ytd: Availability (£)


Availability index (%)

It represents the company’s ability to meet short-term commitments through the use of working capital (credits + liquidity + inventories).
The values ​​displayed as a percentage indicate that the index is:
Excellent> 1.40
Good> 1.20
Sufficient> 1.10
Critical <1.10-1

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi: – ((inventories + receivables + bank_and_cash_balances) / short_term_liabilities): ytd: Availability index (%)


Liquidity ratios (%)

It represents the company’s ability to meet short-term commitments through the use of working capital (receivables + liquidity) excluding inventories.
The values ​​displayed as a percentage indicate that the index is:
Excellent> 1.10-1.20
Good 0.90-1
Sufficient 0.80-0.90
Critical <0.70

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi: – ((receivables + bank_and_cash_balances) / short_term_liabilities): ytd: Liquidity ratio (%)


Financial independence (%)

It represents the degree of patrimonial solidity of the company in terms of the ratio between the own capital and the total assets of the balance sheet.
The values ​​displayed as a percentage indicate that the index is:
Excellent> 25-30%
Good> 120%
Sufficient> 8-10%
Critical <7%

The formula to use to display it is the following

kpi: (- (capital) / assets) * 100: ytd: Financial independence (%)


VAT (£)

Represents the value of the output VAT (if> 0) or credit (if <0)

The formula to use to display it is the following:-

kpi: vat * (- 1): ytd: VAT (£)

Other examples

Here is an example .

Accounting years:

  • From 01/01/2021 to 31/12/2021 current financial year

  • From 01/01/2020 to 31/12/2020 of the previous year

Accounting records:

  • the balance of the Cash on hand account for 2021 is £4,650.00

  • the balance of the Bank account for 2021 is – £ 3,500.00

  • the two accounts are associated with the “Cash and cash equivalents” category, therefore the category has a balance of £1,150.00 for 2021

  • Current date: June 2021

    • with the following command that considers the year: kpi: bank_and_cash_balances: ytd: Availability £ (from the beginning of the financial year to today) the following result is obtained: Availability £1,150 (from the beginning of the financial year to today), (0) Budget, 250 (Financial year prev.);

If you want to restore the standard Cloud Accounting dashboard, just select the ” Restore Dashboard ” button.

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When an administrator in a new company applies the defaults of another company the custom dashboard will also be reported.

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