Seven numbers every CA practice owner should look at every week

Ask most CA practice owners how the firm did last month and you will hear, "It was busy." Busy is not a number. You can be busy and still have fees stuck with clients for months, or be busy with work that will not be billed until next year.

Large firms have finance teams and monthly reports. A 1–15 person office usually has the owner, a Tally file, a few Excel sheets and a lot of memory. That is enough, if you look at the right few numbers regularly.

Here are seven numbers worth looking at every week, why each matters, where to find it, a one-page sheet to track them, and a 20-minute Monday routine to keep it going.

Why weekly, and why only seven

Monthly is too slow for a small office. By the time you notice that collections dropped, the month is gone. Weekly lets you act while there is still time to call a client or move a deadline.

Seven numbers is about as many as a busy owner will actually look at. More than that and the sheet becomes a chore you skip. Fewer and you miss parts of the picture. These seven cover three areas: new work coming in, money coming in, and work getting done.

The seven numbers

1. New enquiries

How many people asked about your services this week? This includes referrals from existing clients, enquiries from people who found you, and existing clients asking about a new service. It is the first sign of how much work is coming.

Where to get it: a simple enquiry register (date, name, who referred them, what they need). Without one, enquiries live in WhatsApp and get forgotten.

2. Proposals or quotes sent

Of those enquiries, how many got a clear written scope and fee from you? An enquiry with no proposal is a lost chance. If enquiries are high but proposals are low, the bottleneck is your own time to respond.

Where to get it: the same enquiry register, with a "proposal sent on" column.

3. Engagements won

How many said yes this week? Over a few months, you will see roughly how many enquiries turn into work. That helps you plan staff before a season, not during it.

Where to get it: enquiry register, "won / lost / pending" column.

4. Fees invoiced

The total value of invoices raised this week. Many offices do the work and invoice weeks later, or only at year end. That delay is money you have earned but cannot collect yet.

Where to get it: your accounting software or invoice book. Most owners can pull this from Tally in a minute.

5. Fees collected

The money that actually came into your bank this week. This is the number that pays salaries and rent. A busy, high-invoicing office can still have a cash problem if collections lag.

Where to get it: bank statement or receipts entered in your books.

6. Overdue receivables

The total amount that clients owe you beyond your agreed payment period, say 30 days. Watch both the total and the top five clients in it. This list is your weekly collection call list.

Where to get it: outstanding report from your accounting software, filtered to bills older than your payment period.

7. Tasks overdue

How many pieces of client work are past their internal due date? This is your early warning for missed deadlines and unhappy clients. A rising number usually means someone on the team is overloaded, or clients are delaying documents.

Where to get it: your office task list. If you track tasks with owners and due dates, this is a quick count. A CRM like Nexus can show enquiries, follow-ups and overdue tasks in one place; if you use Excel, a filter on the due date column works.

The one-page weekly sheet

Keep it simple. One row per number, one column per week. Put this on a single sheet in Excel or even a page in a notebook.

Fill it with whatever numbers your practice has. For a hypothetical office, one week might read: 4 enquiries, 2 proposals, 1 won, say ₹60,000 invoiced, ₹45,000 collected, ₹1,80,000 overdue, 6 tasks overdue. Those numbers alone already tell you where to spend the week: on collections and on clearing overdue work.

Look at the trend, not one week

Any single week can be odd because of a holiday or a big deadline. What matters is the direction over four to eight weeks. Is overdue money creeping up? Are enquiries steady but proposals falling? The trend tells you what to fix.

The 20-minute Monday routine

Block the same 20 minutes every Monday morning, before the office gets busy. Here is a simple order:

1. Minutes 1–8: Fill the sheet. Pull the seven numbers for last week from your registers, Tally and task list.
2. Minutes 9–12: Compare. Look at last week and the week before. Circle anything that moved a lot.
3. Minutes 13–17: Pick three actions. For example: call the top two overdue clients, send the two pending proposals, ask a staff member about their overdue tasks.
4. Minutes 18–20: Put them on the calendar. Assign each action to yourself or someone else with a day this week.

That is it. The point is not the sheet. The point is the three actions that come out of it.

Numbers to avoid obsessing over

Some figures feel important but rarely lead to action in a small office. Total number of clients, for instance, changes slowly and does not tell you about fees or workload. Hours worked can be useful for pricing, but tracking it weekly is often more effort than it is worth at first. Start with the seven above. Add others only once this habit is solid.

In short

• Track seven numbers weekly: enquiries, proposals, wins, invoiced, collected, overdue receivables, overdue tasks.
• Keep an enquiry register if you do not have one; three of the numbers come from it.
• Use a one-page sheet with one column per week, and watch the trend.
• Spend 20 minutes every Monday and finish with three actions on the calendar.
• Start rough; accuracy will improve with the habit.