Operations
Five numbers every export business owner should see each week
Outstanding, overdue, shipments on the water, pending refunds and margin per shipment.
Contents
- Your accounts tell you what happened last month. These five numbers tell you what is happening now.
- Each one points to money: money owed to you, money at risk, or money you are not making.
- If getting them takes a day of work, the problem is how your data is kept, not your team.
Why weekly
Monthly accounts arrive too late to act on. By the time you see that a buyer paid late or a refund is stuck, it has been stuck for six weeks. A short weekly view lets you ask the right question while there is still time to fix it.
You do not need a long report. You need five numbers, the same five every week, so you can see which way they are moving.
1. Outstanding receivables
What it is: the total your buyers owe you for goods already shipped, by buyer and by currency.
Why it matters: this is your money, sitting with someone else. Watch the total and watch which buyers make it up. If one buyer is a large share of what you are owed, that is a risk, however good the relationship.
2. Overdue payments
What it is: the part of outstanding that is past its due date, with how many days late.
Why it matters: late payment is often the first sign of a buyer in trouble. It also affects your compliance, because export proceeds must be realised within the period your bank and RBI allow. One overdue list, sorted by days late, tells you who to call this week.
3. Shipments on the water
What it is: shipments that have left India and not yet reached the buyer, with their value and expected arrival.
Why it matters: this is money in transit. It shows what you will be owed soon, and it warns you early when a vessel is delayed and a buyer may pay late.
4. Pending refunds and incentives
What it is: IGST refund, duty drawback and RoDTEP that you have claimed but not yet received, with how long each has been pending.
Why it matters: this money is owed to you by the government. It is easy to forget because it does not come from a buyer. Many exporters find a surprising amount stuck here, often for one small reason, such as an invoice number that does not match.
5. Margin per shipment
What it is: what you made on each shipment after the real cost of goods, freight, charges and any discount.
Why it matters: your quoted margin and your real margin are often different. Freight changes, suppliers raise prices, and the bank deducts charges. If you only see margin at year end, you cannot tell which buyers or products are worth keeping.
Getting the numbers without a day of work
Ask your team for these five numbers today, and notice how long it takes. If the answer is "by Friday", it means the information sits in several spreadsheets, in the accounting system and in people's heads, and someone must put it together by hand.
That is the real problem to fix. When orders, shipments, payments and refunds are kept in one system, these numbers are simply there.
How Expodite helps. Expodite's dashboard shows outstanding and overdue payments in each currency, realisation falling due, incentives not yet credited and profit per shipment, from the same records your team already uses. You see them when you log in, without asking anyone.
See Expodite's dashboardQuestions to ask your team
- Can you send me these five numbers every Monday morning?
- How long does it take to put them together, and from how many files?
- Which buyer has been overdue the longest, and what is the reason?
- How much refund and incentive is pending, and for how long?
- Which of last month's shipments had the lowest margin, and why?
Quick answers
- What should an export business track every week?
- Outstanding receivables, overdue payments, shipments in transit, pending refunds and incentives, and margin per shipment.
- Why is my real margin lower than my quoted margin?
- Usually because freight, supplier prices, bank charges or discounts changed after you quoted. Tracking margin per shipment shows where it was lost.
