What a monthly report should tell you in two minutes
A monthly report is not there to hold every number. Its first page should tell you how much you sold, how much you kept, why it changed and what happens next month.
Many store reports are long exports with a chart on top. They record the month but leave the reading to you, and a busy owner rarely has the hour it takes. A good report does the reading first. Its first page answers four questions, in this order, and everything after it is the evidence.
- How much did we sell? Total sales and orders, against last month and the same month last year.
- How much did we keep? Net profit after the Shopee fees, ads, vouchers and the cost of the products.
- Why did it change? The few products, campaigns or shifts in traffic and conversion that explain most of the difference.
- What do we do next month? Three decisions, each with a name and a date.
The first page, in practice
| Metric | This month | Last month | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| GMV | IDR 412.6m | IDR 348.5m | +18.4% |
| Orders | 3,184 | 2,874 | +10.8% |
| Net profit after fees, ads and vouchers | IDR 61.9m | IDR 56.2m | +10.1% |
| Margin | 15.0% | 16.1% | −1.1 pts |
Sales grew faster than profit, so the margin fell.
Read from the top, the page says that sales grew 18.4% but profit only 10.1%, so something cost more than it earned. The next page names it. In this month, a shop voucher brought 68 orders at a 3.9% margin, while a campaign discount brought 214 orders at 11.2%. The decision follows from the numbers: keep the campaign and cap the voucher.
If a report does not end in a decision, it is a record, not a report.
Numbers you can check
Every figure should be one you can trace. Build the report from your own Seller Centre exports of orders, income and ads rather than from screenshots or estimates, so that each line leads back to the orders it came from. Compare the same view month on month, keep the definitions fixed (if net profit includes vouchers in September, it includes them in October too) and note anything unusual, such as a stockout or a campaign day, beside the number it moved.
Then read it together. A short call with the report on screen, ending in the three decisions for next month, does more than a longer document that nobody opens. Our own monthly report works this way: built from your Seller Centre exports, with the month on month changes, and read with you on a call that ends in decisions.