Field notes ·
Planning assumptions worth putting on the first panel
Which plan drivers belong on the opening financial planning dashboard, and which ones belong in an appendix nobody opens.
The first panel of a planning view should answer three questions: what volume we expect, what unit economics we assume, and where cash headroom sits if those assumptions slip.
Detailed departmental budgets can live one click away. Crowding the opening panel with every cost centre teaches leadership to skim, which defeats the purpose of a financial planning dashboard.
We favour showing the three assumptions that moved most in the last reforecast. Static assumptions that never change belong in a definitions sheet, not in the visual hierarchy.
If your board in Hong Kong also reviews FX exposure, keep FX as a separate lens rather than burying it inside every revenue line. Mixed lenses make variance conversations muddy.