How to set up a monthly MIS report your CFO (or you) will actually use

A Management Information System (MIS) report is your company's financial dashboard. Most growing companies either have no MIS, or have one so complex it takes 3 days to compile and no one reads it. Neither works.

A functional MIS for a 20–200 person company should cover five things, monthly, within 10 days of month close: Revenue (actual vs. budget, by segment or product line), Expenses (actual vs. budget, by department), Cash position (bank balances, receivables, payables), Key operational metrics (utilisation, conversion rates, project burn — specific to your business), and one-paragraph management commentary on what moved and why.

Build it in Excel or Google Sheets first. Don't buy an ERP or BI tool until your MIS structure is stable and you know what questions you're trying to answer. Most companies that buy Tableau or Power BI before they've nailed their MIS structure end up with expensive dashboards of the wrong data.

Assign ownership. Someone needs to own the MIS close process — collecting data from finance, ops, and sales, and publishing by a fixed date each month. In most SMEs this is the CFO, a senior accountant, or a finance manager. Without ownership, it drifts.

Start simple. Revenue, expenses, cash, and two operational metrics. Add more once the basics are running cleanly. Complexity is the enemy of consistency.