Your bank balance can look fine while your school is slipping. This week’s payments may be covering last month’s overdue invoices, and a half-empty class still costs the same teacher payout. By the time it shows up in the month-end report, you’ve lost four weeks to fix it.

These five school metrics take about 15 minutes to check each week. Each has a simple formula, so you can start with the spreadsheets you already have.

Example: a learning center that looked fine

Take a learning center with one branch and about 300 students. Every Friday, the owner checks the bank balance, and it’s steady.

What the balance doesn’t show: over six weeks, the collection rate has slipped from 92% to 81%. Parents are still paying, just later. Three classes are running below half full. Nothing looks wrong until payroll week, when cash comes up short.

The 5 metrics to check every week

1. Collection rate. School fees collected ÷ school fees due this week. If it drops, parents are paying late, even if cash is still coming in.

2. Overdue over 30 days. The total of unpaid invoices older than 30 days. The older a balance gets, the harder it is to collect.

3. Attendance rate. Sessions attended ÷ sessions scheduled. Falling attendance usually comes before drop-offs and missed renewals.

4. Class fill rate. Students enrolled ÷ class capacity. A half-full class costs the same teacher payout as a full one.

5. Teacher payroll as % of revenue. Teacher payout ÷ school fees collected. If it rises, your classes cost more to run than they bring in.

The first two tell you whether you’re collecting school fees on time. The last two tell you whether you can keep disbursing teacher salaries accurately without cash running short.

How to check them in 15 minutes

1. Pick one day. Same day and time each week.

2. Log the 5 numbers. One row per week in a single sheet.

3. Compare with last week. A trend tells you more than one number.

4. Act on the worst one. Send reminders, merge a low class, or review a teacher’s schedule.

This works in Excel sheets if someone keeps them updated. The catch is that each number comes from a different place: billing, attendance, class lists and payroll. Pulling them together every week is where most owners give up.

Running more than one branch? Check these per branch, and see our guide to managing multiple branches.

Your 5 metrics, already calculated in Tutearn

Back to the learning center. Once billing, attendance, classes and payroll run in one school management system, the owner opens reports instead of building them:

• Collection rate without the math. The collection report shows collection rate and receivables aging. The monthly report shows the % collected against what was invoiced.

• Overdue school fees caught early. Parent Dues shows each family’s balance, next due date and when they were last reminded. Automated payment reminders follow up so the team doesn’t have to.

• Drop-offs before they happen. The enrollment and retention report shows who’s staying and who has stopped coming.

• Weak classes stand out. The class performance report shows revenue and payroll cost per class, so a class that earns less than it costs is easy to spot.

• Payroll checked against revenue. Teacher payroll is calculated from each teacher’s rates, hours and cut-offs. The payroll summary sits alongside collections, so you can compare the two before you disburse teacher salaries.

• This week vs last week. Period filters and a previous vs current period report replace your weekly log. Export any report to CSV or PDF.

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