What a board-ready memo looks like

One page. What happened, why it matters, what to do about it. If it cannot be read in the truck between jobs, it is a report, not a memo.

The three sections

What happened. Results with the reason attached. Revenue, margin, and cash, each with the sentence that explains the move. Not every number the month produced, only the ones that changed the story.

Why it matters. The translation into money and time. A two-point margin slip becomes a dollar figure a month and a date when it starts to hurt. This is the section most packages skip, and it is the one owners actually read.

What to do about it. Up to three moves, in priority order, each citing the rule and the numbers that produced it. Three is a limit, not a target: a month with one clear move is a good month.

What it is not

Not a data dump, not a 30-tab export, not a deck. Every figure in the memo earns its place by changing a decision. Everything else stays in the appendix where it belongs.

Who ends up reading it

Your bank, the day you ask for room. A partner. Someday, a buyer working through diligence, who finds two years of monthly memos and starts trusting your numbers before the first meeting. And mostly you, in January, asking what actually happened this year and getting twelve pages that answer in order.

The five-minute test

Hand this month's package to someone smart who does not work in the business. If they cannot name your three decisions inside five minutes, the package is not board-ready, however thorough it is.

Read one

The first page of a real-format sample sits on the sample memo page, and the full three-page version arrives by email. The memo ships with every monthly close, alongside the 13-week cash forecast.