Understanding KPIs & Step 4

In 'Step 4: KPIs', you can select from a list of default key performance indicators (KPIs) or create custom KPIs that are important to track for your business or your client's business.

KPIs help to track both financial and non-financial performance. The KPIs selected in Step 4 will appear in your reports and analysis tools, allowing you to drill down into more detail and show patterns over time. KPIs can then be grouped in categories.

✔️A green tick indicates that a KPI is active.
There is no limit on the number of KPIs which can be created in Fathom and used in custom reports. There is a limit of 60 'active' KPIs. Only KPIs set to 'active will display in the Analysis tools and the limit is set to 60 to ensure the tools remain readable.
When selecting your KPIs, you can assign a degree of importance to each KPI. Click on the appropriate star to assign low, medium, high or critical importance. The importance level helps to organise and prioritise your active KPIs. Your selection of KPIs and their importance can be updated or changed at any time in the future.
You can also arrange and re-order the KPIs presented in your reports. Simply drag & drop KPIs or categories to re-order. This will affect the presentation order in your reports and analysis tools.

💡Pro Tip: If you're an Advisor or Admin-level user on a Fathom account, you can follow and complete the KPIs Checklist to choose and set up your KPIs. Launch the KPIs Checklist

KPI Types

Default KPIs

Fathom calculates 50+ standard financial KPIs by default. In addition, you can create your own custom financial and non-financial KPIs.

Custom KPIs

There are four different types of 'custom' KPIs in Fathom:

Non-financialKPIs	Results for these KPIs can be imported from Google Sheets or Excel or manually entered into Fathom. Can be used to measure: operational data leading indicators common business measures (e.g. sales & marketing, customer service, production, operations, research & development, human resources, etc.).
Account Watch KPIs	Track any account from your general ledger as a key metric in Fathom, allowing you to monitor key Income or Expense accounts closely.
Divisonal KPIs	Track financial KPIs for your divisions or locations (e.g. tracking categories, classes, location, etc.)
Formula KPIs	Create your own custom KPI formula. For example, you can create a KPI to track any expense accounts as a percentage of total costs or total revenue. You can also create KPIs using both financial and non-financial data (eg. ‘Revenue per Employee’).

In addition to creating a new KPI, you can also select a KPI that you have previously created and stored in your KPI Library. To access your organisation's KPI Library select 'KPI Library' from the top menu.

📝 Note: Only 'Admin' level users in Fathom will have access to the KPI Library.

You can return to this step at any time to change your selection of KPIs.

Creating a custom KPI

When you create a custom KPI, you can specify a name, description, unit of measure, aggregation type, category and target type.

Aggregation: The method is used to calculate quarterly and annual results and targets from monthly targets and non-financial KPI results.

There are three types of Aggregation possible for custom KPIs:

Summative: Sums the monthly targets or non-financial KPI results into a total for the Quarter or Year. KPIs related to items on the Profit and Loss (Income Statement) would typically use a Summative aggregation type.
Balance: Shows the balance of the target or non-financial KPI for the ending month in the Quarter or Year. KPIs derived from Balance Sheet items, or non-financial KPIs such as 'number of employees' would typically use a Balance aggregation type.
Average: Displays the average of the monthly targets or non-financial KPI results over the Quarter or Year. KPIs measured as a ratio or percentage would typically have targets averaged over the months in a quarter or year.

Decimal places: This represents the precision to which the KPI is measured (zero, one or two decimal places).

Creating a Formula KPI

For formula KPIs, you can define the calculation using the formula builder.

You can select from a range of different variables when building a Formula KPI. This includes: Accounts from your source accounting system, custom headings/groupings created in your Fathom Chart of Accounts, non-financial KPIs, summary financial items e.g. 'Gross Profit' and 'EBITDA', and default rates (specified in Step 2 of company settings).

For example:

Using Divisional Data in KPIs

If you’ve imported divisions (classes, locations, tracking categories, jobs & categories) into Fathom, then you can use this divisional data in custom KPI formulas and track KPIs at the divisional level.

Please read our ‘Using Divisions in KPIs’ article for more information about using divisional data in KPIs.

Consolidating KPIs

Adding custom KPIs to a consolidated group requires you to add the KPIs to the KPI Library. More detailed information about consolidating custom KPIs can be found in our 'Consolidating KPIs' article.

Next Steps

Congratulations on setting up and organising your Chart of Accounts! Any decisions you made in 'Step 4 - KPIs' can be changed at any time, if needed. Continue the 'Getting Started Workflow' and finish setting up your company for analysis, reporting, and forecasting by choosing from one of the next steps below:

What you want to do:	Next step in the setup process:
Happy with your chosen KPIs and ready to set targets for your company?	Set Targets
Good with your targets and ready to set up alerts?	Set Alerts

Additional knowledge & common questions