How has business been for your roofing company this last year? At this time of year, many contractors take stock of the previous year's financial results for their companies. Now is an excellent opportunity to evaluate your progress and make necessary adjustments for the following year. Year-end reporting gives a picture of company trends, but sifting through all the data may be a daunting task. It is easy for business owners to lose sight of the forest for the trees. The data itself creates obstacles, but so do interpreting and acting upon it. Knowing where to begin when creating reports might be challenging, even with roofing software.

RooferIntel has extensive experience in assisting roofing businesses with end-of-year reports. Some reports that may provide helpful insights are shown below, along with an explanation of their significance. These reports are accessible in RooferIntel and may be used to understand relevant company trends better.

Look for These Four Items in the Year-End Reporting

1. A/R Age by Salesperson Reports

To define: Accounts receivable (A/R) aged by a sales rep provides a summary of your overall A/R by the age of invoices.

What this means and why it's significant: Tracking accounts receivable (A/R) is a must for any roofing company owner who wants to keep a handle on their money and assets. However, life may become hectic, so it may have been a while since you checked your A/R. To find out how long it took to be paid on invoices and which accounts took the longest, you may look at the A/R Age reports for the last twelve months. You may also examine the data to determine whether there is a correlation between the time it takes to be paid and the nature of the work or between the salesperson's profession and the time it takes to get paid.

When numerous accounts take an unusually long to pay their bills, it may indicate that you need to rethink your billing system or how you do business. You may want to maintain closer tabs on A/R, set up reminders to contact clients who haven't paid, or switch to electronic invoicing if your A/R Age by Salesperson report shows many invoices that remain unpaid an extended time.

2. Closing Percentage Reports

To define: A breakdown of your sales successes relative to your sales efforts. Individual salespeople's and the company's closing percentages may be tracked separately.

What this means and why it's significant: If you make four pitches for your roofing company and only two close, your closing percentage is 50%, but your sales are terrible. You need to look at more than just the closing percentage to gauge your success. The closing percentage may be used as a quick indicator of the success of your sales efforts.

Finding out what your closing % is can tell you whether you need to make any changes to your approach. Is it common for your sales team to pursue many leads that are unlikely to convert into paying customers? Have you got enough competition? Should you alter the methods, you use to promote your company or the areas you visit to find potential customers? You may begin answering these questions by analyzing your closing rate in the context of your other company metrics.

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3. Lead Source Report

To define: A breakdown of the origins of your prospective customers.

What this means and why it's significant: Do you feel there wasn't enough interest in your roofing services this year? Reviewing your lead source reports may show you the channels where you receive the most leads. New or unused lead sources might be a massive opportunity for expansion.

You might want to rethink your plan for the next year if you invested much in a lead generation source that didn't pay off. It's also beneficial to look into the origins of dead ends. An alternative to focusing on the basis that generated many leads but didn't convert them all may be to prioritize leads from a source that generated fewer leads but did convert them.

4. Job Milestones Report

To define: A report detailing the typical duration of tasks from start to finish.

What this means and why it's significant: Examining the roofing project lifecycle from contract close to payment in full might help you identify bottlenecks in the workflow. When employment lingers in one place for an extended time, it's important to investigate why that could be. Is there, for example, a long lag time between when you close a sale and when you really begin working on a job? It's possible that getting the necessary supplies and personnel scheduled promptly will be difficult. To keep things running correctly, roofing company owners should analyze how long it takes for various occupations to complete multiple tasks.

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