Revenue is the easy one. The other nine numbers tell you whether next month's revenue is going to be there. If you only check one of these weekly today, the goal is to add a second.
Why weekly, not monthly
A month is too long to find out a metric is sliding. Two consecutive weeks of bad trial conversion is the difference between "we'll figure it out" and "we already lost the quarter." Weekly is short enough to act and long enough to be signal, not noise.
The 10 numbers
1. Active students
Not enrolled-this-year. Not lifetime-students-ever. The count of students whose membership is active right now. This is the headline number for the school's size.
2. MRR
Monthly recurring revenue. Total of every active membership billed monthly. Pro-rate annual memberships into the monthly number for honesty.
3. New enrollments this week
Trial-to-enrolled conversions that completed this week. A weekly look at the input to next month's MRR.
4. Cancellations this week
Memberships that ended this week. Pair this with reason codes: moved, money, schedule, lost interest, instructor change. The tally tells you what to fix.
5. Trial-to-enrolled conversion (rolling 30 days)
Of the trials that completed in the last 30 days, what percentage are enrolled today. This is the leading indicator for next month's growth.
6. At-risk students
Count of students hitting one or more at-risk signals: 3-week attendance gap, missed two consecutive belt tests, unresolved payment failure over 14 days, no portal logins in 60 days. This is your retention pipeline.
7. Failed payments outstanding
Failed recurring charges from the last 30 days that haven't been recovered. Both a revenue leak and a retention risk: the families with stuck payments often churn next.
8. Belt tests scheduled and ready
Number of students eligible for the next belt test divided by your typical capacity. If this number is creeping up, you have a promotion-velocity problem brewing.
9. Trials booked next week
The trials already on the calendar for next week, with at least one matching slot. This is the most forward-looking of all 10 numbers.
10. Staff inbox count
How many tasks are open in your team's daily inbox. A number that creeps up means follow-ups are stacking and won't all get done.
Three trends matter more than the absolute numbers. Direction (up or down), velocity (steady or sudden), and the gap to your last great month.
What to do with them
Pin them. Same time every week, same screen, same order. The discipline matters more than the dashboard. Most owners we talk to who hit their targets share one habit: a Monday 9am appointment with these numbers, alone, for 15 minutes.
When one of them sags, the action isn't to grind harder. The action is to ask "which workflow upstream of this is broken?" Trial conversion sagging? Look at the trial follow-up inbox. At-risk count rising? Look at the parent-conversation cadence. The numbers tell you which workflow to inspect.
If you're tracking none of these today
Pick three. Active students, MRR, and trial-to-enrolled. Track them every Monday for a month. By week four you'll find yourself wanting to know which trials slipped. That's the point. The dashboard you grow into is the one that earns its place by answering questions you actually have.