Download the worksheet (.xlsx)
Excel file, five tabs, no macros. Opens in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers.
What is inside
- Definitions. Seventeen metrics a consumer brand argues about, from gross sales to slow-moving inventory, each with columns for your formula, what it includes and excludes, an owner and a date, plus the common trap generic tools fall into.
- Sources of truth. For orders, returns, product cost, inventory, marketing spend, cash, the plan and wholesale: the one system that wins, and the ones nobody should use.
- Judgment calls. The thresholds, comparisons and calendar rules your best analyst applies without thinking.
- Seasonality. Enter up to three years of monthly net revenue and it works out each month's share of the year, then projects the full year from year-to-date, the right way to do what a run rate gets wrong.
- A worked example on each tab you fill in, to overwrite.
Why start here
Most arguments about a brand's numbers are really arguments about definitions. Settle them once and the weekly recap, the close pack and the board package stop disagreeing with each other. The pages on return rate, contribution margin and landed cost walk through the hardest rows.
Filling this in with your team is the first week of an operations audit. The second week puts a model to work on it.
Questions
Do I need to give an email to download it?
No. It downloads directly. If it helps, I would like to hear what you used it for.
Does it work in Google Sheets or Numbers?
Yes. It is an Excel file with no macros. In Google Sheets, use File, then Import, then upload it. Numbers opens it directly.
Who should fill it in?
Whoever builds the weekly and monthly reports today, with the CFO or COO settling anything contested. Date every decision, and change the definition here first whenever it changes.
Why does this matter for AI?
Because a model can only answer with your definitions if someone has written them down. This sheet is that list, and it is what turns generic answers into ones your team can act on.