6 KPIs Every Firm Manager Needs to Track

At many firms, management monitors the health of the firm through static reports generated periodically. While static reports will always play an important role in firm management, more and more firm managers are implementing tools that allow them to monitor important KPIs using near-real time dashboards and easy to understand data visualizations.

When you dive deeper into your data, you’ll learn where you can improve both in business and in internal process. Tracking the right KPIs helps firms identify strong/weak revenue streams and strategic growth areas. Most importantly, with this intelligence in hand, customers can take action to improve in business and internal processes.

CCH Axcess Data Axcess Dashboards help firms gather business intelligence and develop insights that drive change in the firm. Using these dashboards, firms can dynamically slice and dice data, diving deeper into their data to learn where they can improve both in business and internal processes. With 6 available dashboards, filtering and drill-down capabilities, there are almost limitless opportunities to dive deep into your data. Here are a few of the most important KPIs to track.

• Employee/Partner Ratio is a unique way to look at how the firm is structured. If a partner has too many staff, perhaps they aren’t able to manage their book of business effectively. Or the staff may not get enough interaction with their reporting Partner, which may have turnover issues down the line. There are a lot of varying thoughts on the ideal ratio, but it really boils down to goals/drive and what your firm needs. Perhaps you have a star waiting to become partner and now you have the metrics to support it.
• Top Client Fees is another great KPI, especially when you look at multiple years aggregated. You may have had a client who spent a lot the first year, but didn’t spend much the second year. And now you can compare their spending trends overtime. Perhaps your #10 client could be your #2 client, with a little more TLC. Being able to evaluate spending trends of a client is very powerful.
• Percent of Fees by Client takes a deep look into your entire book of business and shows you the spread of how much each client contributes to your total revenue. Most firms’ spreads are not heavily focused on a single client, but rather many, many clients contributing. You can use this data in a lot of ways, for example seeing trends in lower tier clients, and looking at ways to grow your offering to them directly.
• Another interesting KPI is Services per Client. This takes a look at an individual client and the associated services you provide for them. A big client of yours not doing their family returns with your office; sounds like time for a lunch meeting!
• Billed vs. Collected is another cool KPI. It shows the total dollars billed by your firm and the total aggregate collected. What we don’t want to see is Billed amounts higher than collected!
• The Lifetime Value of a client is a stat that gets overlooked, especially when looking at growing your business. For instance, you want to spend marketing dollars to grow your business, you meet with a vendor, like the approach, but the cost is higher than you expected. Let’s take the worst case scenario. You spend these dollars and get one new client. But… What does the client look like? Does that client match a current client? If so let’s look at their lifetime value. You don't want a client for a  single engagement. You want to grow together, for years to come.

In the end, the data out is only good as the data in. Using CCH Axcess Data Axcess Dashboards, we can capture those details like never before. This type of actionable data can help guide decision making across all aspects of business and really challenge the way you think about things. The best part is, this is only the beginning! As you take this opportunity to really learn about your business in a very different way, you will start to look at all aspects differently. And that is a GOOD thing!

Find out how CCH Axcess Data Axcess Solutions are helping firms turn information into actionable insights. Download our Business Intelligence Tools ebook to learn more.