---
id: KB-CR-013
url: https://app.codecontract.io/help/use-cases-by-role/what-to-check-monthly-if-you-run-the-company
idioma: en
categoria: casos-por-rol
subcategoria: direccion
audiencia: usuario
nivel: basico
actualizado: 2026-08-13
tambienEn: [es]
relacionados: [KB-CR-007, KB-IC-011]
citadoPor: [KB-CD-014, KB-TD-015]
---

# What to check monthly if you run the company

_Four things, fifteen minutes, and none of them is a dashboard._

**Responde a:** what a manager should review monthly · documentary risk indicators for management · monthly compliance review · what to check as a managing director

Most documentary problems reach management once they are already an incident: a penalty, a client withholding payment, a site stopped. Almost all were visible in advance, in four figures that need looking at no more than monthly.

## The four

1. **What percentage is current** — And above all, which way it moves. 92% falling worries more than 85% rising.
2. **What has been stuck longest** — Not how many cases are open: which is the oldest. That is where the problems are.
3. **How many exceptions were approved** — The times someone let something incomplete through. If they rise, the process does not match reality.
4. **And what expires in the next ninety days** — The only thing that lets you decide with margin rather than react.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> The third is barely ever looked at and carries the most information. A rise in exceptions does not mean people comply worse: it almost always means the process asks for something operations cannot give, and that is fixed by changing the process.

## What you do NOT need to look at

| This | Why not |
| --- | --- |
| Case-by-case detail | If you have to look at it, the problem is delegation, not data |
| Fifteen indicators | None of them will produce a decision |
| What is fine and unchanged | One line is enough |

> [!WARNING]
> If answering the four questions costs someone a morning of assembling, that is the month's finding. A figure that costs a morning gets calculated differently each time and stops being comparable, which was the only thing making it useful.

## The question worth asking in the meeting

"What decision do you need from me this month?" If the answer is "none" two months running, either everything is going very well or the report is not describing what happens. Both possibilities deserve a conversation.

**En corto**

- Four figures, always the same ones.
- Trend over absolute value.
- And one concrete decision per meeting, or the meeting was not needed.

> [!NOTE]
> If you work with large clients, add a fifth: how many client audits or formal requests there were and how they were answered. It is the best leading indicator of whether the system holds.

**Are fifteen minutes enough?**

To look, yes. To decide what comes out of it, it depends.

**Should I look myself or delegate?**

Look at the four, yes. The detail, no.

**What if the numbers are wrong?**

That is as valid a finding as any, and it usually points at the process.

## Ejemplos

**A managing director receives a fifteen-indicator report and does not read it.**

- Asks for four figures with their trend
- Adds the question of what decision is needed this month

→ Spots a rise in exceptions three months before it would have become a process problem.

**The monthly review happens by asking the team.**

- Checks the status already calculated

→ The meeting starts with data.

**Everything is looked at and nothing is decided.**

- Looks at what has been stalled too long

→ The review produces decisions.

**The indicator rises and nobody knows why.**

- Compares with the previous period

→ The change is located.

**Each department presents its own version.**

- Checks the same source for all

→ The picture is shared.

**A month is skipped and the thread is lost.**

- Schedules the review in the calendar

→ The cadence keeps itself.