build-a-working-capital-dashboard

name	build-a-working-capital-dashboard
category	money
description	Build a working capital dashboard with governed definitions, cash-conversion drivers, aging, forecasts, ownership, drill-downs, uncertainty, and reconciliation. Use when leaders need actionable liquidity visibility rather than a single blended metric.

build-a-working-capital-dashboard

When to use

• Use to manage receivables, payables, inventory, deposits, collections, purchasing, or short-term liquidity.
• Do not compare business units before harmonizing calendars, currency, exclusions, and accounting definitions.

Procedure

1. Define decisions, users, entities, currencies, periods, materiality, source systems, refresh, and close status.
2. Govern formulas for receivables, payables, inventory, DSO, DPO, DIO, cash conversion, overdue exposure, and available cash.
3. Reconcile operational records to ledger balances and distinguish booked, disputed, forecast, blocked, and in-transit amounts.
4. Segment by entity, customer, supplier, product, region, age, owner, concentration, and root cause.
5. Show actuals, targets, forecast ranges, trend, data freshness, scope changes, and explanatory drivers.
6. Attach actions, accountable owners, due dates, constraints, expected cash effect, and confidence to material exceptions.
7. Test totals, currency translation, period boundaries, late adjustments, permissions, exports, and decision usefulness.

Failure plan

• Suppress misleading aggregates and show a reconciliation gap when source scope, freshness, or accounting treatment is unresolved.

Worked example

A manufacturer traces a weaker cash-conversion cycle to disputed invoices and safety-stock growth rather than pressuring all suppliers equally.

Done

• A working capital dashboard records governed measures, reconciled sources, segments, uncertainty, drivers, actions, and ownership
• Accounting reconciliation, formula, currency, access, freshness, drill-down, and decision-review evidence verifies the dashboard