What a daily owner brief should contain

An owner who is not in the shop all day needs to know three things each morning. What happened. What looks unusual. What needs a decision.

A daily brief answers those in a few lines. Most briefs fail because they dump a whole report, and the one important line is buried. This guide describes a brief that gets read.

What a brief is for

A report lets you explore. A brief tells you where to look.

If you must open five screens to find the problem, the brief has not done its job. The test is simple. After reading it, do you know what to do first?

Part 1: What happened

Start with five to seven numbers. Put each next to something to compare it with.

• Sales yesterday, against the same weekday last week.
• Money received, split into cash, mobile money and bank. Show any gap against sales.
• Cash banked, if you bank daily.
• Stock: how many products are out of stock, or the value of stock received.
• Money customers owe, and how much is overdue.
• Money you owe suppliers, and what falls due this week.
• Expenses for the day or week.

With several branches, show each branch’s sales on one line. The weak one then stands out.

A number alone says little. “Sales 184,000” tells you nothing. “Sales 184,000, 12% below last Tuesday” tells you something.

Part 2: What needs attention

This is the main part of the brief. Choose three to five items, most important first. For each one, say:

1. What happened, in one plain sentence. “Thika recorded 62,000 in mobile-money sales but the statement shows 48,500.”
2. How much money is at stake, so you can rank it.
3. Why it was flagged, such as “usually about 9,000”.
4. Where to look, with a link to the records.
5. What to do first, such as “Ask the cashier to explain”.

Order by money at stake and by urgency, not by topic. A late supplier payment and a possible till shortfall can both matter. Put first the one that costs more if you ignore it.

Part 3: What needs your decision

List anything waiting for you. A discount above the limit. A price change. A higher credit limit. A payroll run.

If you can approve with one reply, say so. Otherwise it sits in your head until it causes a delay.

Part 4: What is coming

Add one or two lines. Supplier payments due. Payroll date. Big deliveries. Stock about to expire.

Looking ahead is the difference between a cash squeeze that surprises you and one you handle.

What to leave out

• Anything normal. “No unusual voids” helps once. Every day it is noise.
• Long tables. Link to them.
• Numbers that change no decision, such as page views of your catalogue.
• Alarming words. A flag is a question. “Please check” is better than “possible fraud”.
• Low-importance items. If everything is urgent, nothing is. Keep small items for the weekly brief.

Keep it trusted

People only read a brief that is right. Follow these rules:

• Take numbers from your records, never from guesses. If a person or a model writes a sentence, the numbers inside it must be checkable.
• Show the evidence. You should be able to go from a line to the records behind it.
• Adjust the limits. In the first weeks some flags will be wrong. Change the limits, switch off checks that do not suit your business, and mark false alarms so they do not return.
• Keep the same time, order and format. A brief that arrives at 7:30 every morning becomes part of the routine.
• Close the loop. A resolved item should disappear. An item ignored for three days should be raised again.

Format and channel

Owners read on their phone. Write for a narrow screen. Use short lines, put the most important item first, and send no attachments.

Messaging apps work well because people already check them. Email suits the weekly version, which can be longer.

Respect quiet hours, and let people choose their channel. A message at 2 am that could wait until 7 teaches people to mute it.

Think about who else needs a brief:

• A branch manager gets their branch only: sales against target, stock gaps, staff flags.
• A finance manager gets cash forecast, matching gaps, money owed to and by you, and tax dates.

A sample brief

Tuesday, 14 October. Sales 184,000, 12% below last Tuesday. Money received 181,200 (cash 70,100, mobile money 99,300, bank 11,800). Overdue customer balances 412,000, up 38,000 this week.

Needs attention

1. Thika: 62,000 in mobile-money sales, but the statement shows 48,500. Two sales have no receipt. Ask the cashier to explain.
2. Cement margin fell from 9% to 4%. Supplier cost is up 6% and the selling price is unchanged. Consider updating the price.
3. Otieno Construction ordered 80,000 on credit. The customer already owes 180,000, 45 days late. Pause credit or ask for part payment.

Waiting for you: 1 price change to approve. This week: payroll on Friday. Supplier payment of 150,000 due Thursday.

The figures are examples. Notice how short it is. Every item has a number, a reason and a next step. The three items come from different parts of the business.

Getting a brief without building it

You can write a brief by hand from a spreadsheet. It takes discipline every single day.

Ziira Intelligence can do it for you. Its Daily summary takes the figures from your records and ranks the top things to look at for each person’s role. It arrives at the time you choose, in your own time zone.

You read it in the app under Intelligence > Daily summary. To get it on your phone too, WhatsApp delivery is available through a messaging add-on. Until you set up a channel, the summary stays in the app.

Whether you use a tool or a spreadsheet, the rule is the same. Keep it short, rank it, show the evidence, and give a next step.