Our financial statements had never looked better.



Revenue up 34%. Expenses stable. Profit margins expanding.

Yet something felt wrong.

Cash was tighter than our P&L suggested it should be.

The problem wasn't in our accounting. It was in the gap between two KPIs we tracked separately but never connected:

Our sales cycle length and our payables timing.

This misalignment – invisible in our financial statements – created a structural cash flow problem that no amount of profitability could solve.

While celebrating our "best year ever" on paper, we were headed for a cash flow crisis.

This illustrates why viewing metrics in isolation can be as dangerous as not tracking them at all.

The most valuable insights for cash flow management often come from relationships between metrics, not individual KPIs:

The gap between sales cycle and payment terms

The relationship between growth rate and inventory turns

The correlation between employee onboarding and productivity

One client's financial statements showed impressive revenue growth and expanding margins. Traditional analysis suggested all was well.

But connecting their customer acquisition rate with their fulfillment capacity ratio revealed a critical problem: they were selling faster than they could deliver.

This created a growing bubble of unfulfilled orders that would eventually damage their reputation and trigger cancellations – a crisis their P&L wouldn't show until too late.

For true business optimization, focus not just on individual KPIs, but on the strategic gaps between them:

Are your operational metrics aligned with financial goals?

Do your growth metrics match your capacity metrics?

Are your customer promises aligned with your delivery capabilities?

Your financial statements show results. Your KPIs reveal processes. The gaps between KPIs expose future risks and opportunities.

Mind the gaps. They often tell the most important story.