The numbers of a personal trainer's business

The business metrics of a personal trainer worth watching are few and always the same: what you have really collected, recurring income, who owes you, how the month is going to close, new clients and departures and, if you note your fixed costs, profit. Every week, a short session with the ones that call for action; every month, another with the ones that show the trend. Here is what to look at and when, how to define each figure so you do not fool yourself and how the Entrenify business dashboard shows them.

Few figures, always the same

A dashboard with twenty numbers does not get looked at. One with six, always defined the same way and reviewed on a fixed schedule, tells you how your business is doing without opening a spreadsheet. The key is not how many figures you follow, but that each one has a clear definition and does not change from one month to the next.

Figure	What it is	The typical mistake
Collected	The money that has really come in during the period	Mixing it with what should come in
Recurring income	What your active fees add up to, converted to a month	Counting one-off payments in it, which do not repeat
Outstanding	Fees whose payment is overdue and not recorded as paid	Looking at it only at the end of the month
Month-end forecast	How the month will end if the expected happens	Counting as certain what has been unpaid for weeks
New clients and departures	Clients who join and who leave in the period	Not knowing in which month each one left
Profit	What you collected minus your fixed costs	Working it out by eye, without noting costs

What you look at every week

The weekly review is for acting, not analysing. On the same day each week:

1. Who owes. Overdue fees with no payment recorded. Write to each one that same day, briefly and in private.
2. What falls due in the next few days. Knowing who renews soon lets you prepare the conversation if something is wrong with that client.
3. What was collected this week. Compare it with the previous week only to spot anything odd, not to draw conclusions.
4. New clients and departures. A departure you did not expect deserves a question: what happened and whether there were signs beforehand.

For the list of who owes to be useful, payments have to be recorded up to date. If you record them in bulk at the end of the month, the weekly review shows debts that do not exist. How to record them however the payment arrives is in charging by subscription and avoiding missed payments.

What you look at every month

The monthly review is for understanding the trend and deciding. Look at:

• What was collected compared with the previous month. Money collected, not forecast.
• Recurring income. It is the base of your business: what comes in each month if nobody leaves. If it grows, you have more clients on fees or higher fees; if it falls, someone has left or changed service.
• Profit. What you collected minus your fixed costs. Without the costs noted, any profit is an assumption.
• New clients and departures for the month. To know whether your client base is growing or just turning over.
• Your target. If you have set yourself a monthly figure, how much you have reached and how much is left.

When a client leaves, do two things: mark them as having left and deactivate their fee. If you do only one, the other figure ends up wrong: an active fee for someone who no longer comes keeps adding to recurring income and to who owes.

The month-end forecast, without fooling yourself

The question “how am I going to close the month?” has an honest answer if you separate three piles:

1. What is already collected. It is certain.
2. What falls due between now and month end. It is likely, but not all of it will arrive on time.
3. What is already overdue and unpaid. It may come in, but do not count on it: someone who has not paid for weeks will not pay just because the month is ending.

A reasonable forecast is the first pile plus the part of the second that you usually collect. The third goes separately, as what would come in if you manage to collect it. If you mix them, you will believe you are doing better than you are.

How to read the figures (and what they do not tell you)

A few rules to avoid drawing the wrong conclusions:

• Compare with the equivalent period. One week with another week, one month with another month.
• If there was nothing before, there is no percentage. Going from zero to something is not an increase that can be measured: it is the first period with data.
• One month is not a trend. A client leaving, an advance payment or a holiday moves a single month a lot.
• Figures tell you what, not why. If departures rise, the answer lies in talking to your clients. The signs that warn you before a client leaves are in how to retain clients as a personal trainer.

And if the figures say that, with a full diary, you do not reach what you need, the problem is not fixed by looking at them more: it lies in the price or the service. We look at it in how much to charge as a personal trainer.

The Entrenify business dashboard

In Entrenify (in Spanish) these figures come from what you already record (fees, payments and clients), with no spreadsheets:

• By period. You choose week, month, quarter or year, and what was collected, new clients, average payment and departures are compared with the equivalent previous period. If there was no data before, it does not invent an increase: it says there is nothing to compare with.
• The figures. What was collected in the period (on the dashboard it appears as “Facturado” (Invoiced) and it is money collected, not forecast), recurring income, what is outstanding, new clients, departures, average payment and the fees renewing in the next 30 days that are not at risk. Each figure explains where it comes from.
• Profit and target. If you note your fixed costs, it shows you the profit; if not, it does not calculate it. If you set a monthly target, it compares it with what was collected.
• Dated departures. When you archive a client, the date they leave is saved, without deleting their history, and it counts as a departure in that period. Their fee is deactivated at the same time: once deactivated, it stops counting towards recurring income and who owes.
• Month-end forecast. It is an arithmetic calculation and shows you the rule it uses. What is already overdue and unpaid is not counted as money that will come in, and if there is not yet enough history to project, it gives no figure and tells you so.
• Chart and calendar. Bars with what was collected in each segment, a line with the running total and, in orange, what falls due and is not yet recorded as paid; and a calendar of the month with what was collected, what falls due and what is overdue for each day.

What it does not do: Entrenify does not charge your clients or issue tax invoices, so the figures are only as good as your payment record. Nor does it tell you what to do with them: the decisions are yours.

There are two plans: Esencial, €22 a month + VAT (Spanish IVA), to manage up to 20 active clients; and Pro, €32 a month + VAT, with no client limit, with your own public website and automations.