Five numbers every business in Xalapa should check every Monday

Most business owners I know can tell you exactly how their week went. They feel it. "Slow one." "Good one." And they're usually right.

The problem isn't that they don't know. It's that they can't compare. Without comparison there's no decision: you can't tell whether opening Sunday is worth it, whether the new supplier was actually better, whether the promotion worked or just cut into your margin.

Here are the five numbers. Not every number that exists — the five that fit into twenty minutes.

1. How much you sold

Sounds obvious, and almost nobody has it right. Selling isn't what landed in the register: it's what you invoiced during the week, collected or not. If you sell on credit those are two different things, and confusing them is one of the most common ways to feel like you have money when you don't.

Write down one figure: sales for the week. Next to it, last week's, and the same Monday from the previous month. Three numbers in a row. That's a trend.

2. How much of each peso you kept

Take your sales for the week and subtract what it cost you to make or buy what you sold. That's your gross margin. Divide it by sales and you have a percentage.

This is the most ignored number and the one that hurts most when neglected. You can sell more every week and be earning less, because your costs went up and you never moved your price. It happens constantly, especially with inputs whose prices shift often.

You don't need accounting precision. You need the same criteria every week, so the comparison means something.

3. How much cash you have available today

Cash on hand, plus what's in the bank, minus what you owe over the next seven days.

This is the number that decides whether you can or can't. If it comes out negative, no strategy matters this week — you solve that first. A profitable business can close because it ran out of cash at the wrong moment, and it's more common than it sounds.

4. How many customers you served

Not pesos: people. How many tickets, how many services, how many orders.

This number, paired with the first, gives you something very useful: your average ticket, which is sales divided by customers. When sales drop, those two numbers tell you why. If customer count dropped, you have a traffic problem. If the ticket dropped, people are showing up but buying less. Two different problems, two different fixes. Without separating them, you'd be guessing.

5. How many customers came back

Of everyone you served this week, how many had been in before.

It's the hardest one to track without a record, and it says the most about your future. A business living on new customers every week is running uphill forever. One with people who return has a floor to build on.

If you can't measure it today, start with an estimate — in a small business, you or your team recognize faces. Write down an honest guess. Approximate and consistent beats exact and occasional.

What this looks like in practice

A table. One row per week. Six columns: date, sales, margin %, cash available, customers, average ticket. It can be a spreadsheet or a notebook.

The ritual is what matters: Monday morning, twenty minutes, before you open. This isn't an accounting exercise, it's a management one. You look at the figures, compare them to the previous three weeks, and decide one single thing you'll change this week. One. Not five.

After two months you'll have something you don't have today: the ability to know whether what you did worked. That's the whole point.

What these five numbers won't tell you

They won't tell you why. They tell you what. The why comes from knowing your business — and that part you already bring.

They also don't replace your accountant. These numbers are for you, to decide on Monday. Your accountant's numbers are for the tax authority and arrive too late to steer by.

If you want to start next Monday

Take a sheet and give it the six columns. Fill in this week's row with whatever you can, even roughly. The first week always comes out incomplete and that's fine — the value shows up in week four, when there's finally something to compare against.

In the 45-minute diagnostic we build exactly this baseline with you, with your real numbers, and you keep it in writing. It's free and commits you to nothing.