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Guest Post – Creating a Financial Dashboard

by MindManager Blog

helpful_tips_imageThis is how I manage access to the diverse sources of information needed to run a business in the UK. The key tool is MindManager’s drag and drop feature for links, files and folders. This allows you to rapidly create a knowledge access map which makes it easy for me to access information on my PC and on the web.  It makes it easier to manage those tasks you do monthly and annually. The blog focusses on a financial map I regularly use which is part of a suite maps used to manage Cabre’s business.
I start with my business in the centre and arrange the various activities around it. Finance is one of several linked to another map. Some branches still have children and can be expanded on this map. As they get more complex I use: Select topic > right click > Send to New Linked Map, to create a linked child map.
The Finance map has several main topics which deal with the many varieties of tax we have in the UK:

  • VAT – Value Added Tax (Sales Tax),
  • Corporation Tax (on business profits),
  • PAYE – Pay As You Earn: for personal tax taken from the pay packet by the employer along with
  • NI – National Insurance to cover state benefits: sick pay, pensions etc.
As a limited company you have to register and report to Companies House.  Finally I have my bank, expenses, dividends and accountants to manage.
Let me show you how I use it to help me manage some of those recurring tasks.
If you make a profit you can pay your shareholders dividends. To do this you need minutes of the board meeting and issue dividend vouchers. This
part of the map gives access to the Word templates needed to produce the
documents and links to the issued documents.
A complex monthly process is
salaries.  This involves using a Tax and NI calculator supplied by the HMRC (Her Majesties Revenues & Customs) and then transferring the figures to Quickbooks. Fortunately there is a memorised transaction feature in Quickbooks and the six lines in the journal entry are filled in automatically. I just have to change the numbers.
The notes have a screen grab of a completed entry.

There are two final moves. Transferring money to your bank and finally don’t forget to pay the Tax and NI due to HMRC by the 22nd of the following month.
Cabre’s accounts are run in Quickbooks. I have not found a way to access or
open specific views in Quickbooks from MindManager but I would like to be able to do that
(suggestions please).


Here
is the big map. Everything I need to access to run the finances of Cabre.

Click on the thumbnail to see a
full size clickable image map.  The company data and links to documents on my PC have been removed.

UK MindManager users can download the
financial dashboard map and all the links to the web should work.
Please contact me if they don’t.  The links to Cabre documents have all been
marked with the No Entry map marker and are not available with the map.
You can use the Power Filter to show and delete them.  The rest of the world can as well but you will have to add the links to the relevant web pages in your country.

Some reminders and a few more tips for creating your dashboards: