KPI Checklist for New Trades Business Owners in Australia

The Complete KPI Checklist for New Trades Business Owners

Use this checklist across your first 90 days. Weeks 1-2 focus on setup and baselining. Weeks 3-8 focus on monitoring and comparison to seller-disclosed figures. Weeks 9-13 focus on trend analysis and setting forward targets.

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Category 1: Financial KPIs

These are the most important numbers to get right early, because they tell you whether the business is performing in line with what you paid for it.

1.1 Weekly Revenue Run Rate

• Set up a weekly revenue report from your accounting software (Xero, MYOB, or ServiceM8/Simpro if integrated)
• Calculate the seller's average weekly revenue from their last three years of financials
• Track your first 4 weeks against that benchmark
• Flag if actual revenue is more than 15% below the seller's average for more than 2 consecutive weeks

Healthy range: varies by trade and season, but the first 4-week average should sit within 20% of the seller's 12-month weekly average. Seasonal businesses (landscaping, HVAC) need longer to normalise.

• Identify your top 10 revenue-generating customers from the seller's records and confirm each is still active

1.2 Gross Margin by Job Type

• Configure your job management software (Simpro, ServiceM8, Tradify, or similar) to track labour, materials, and subcontractor costs per job
• Calculate gross margin for the first 20 completed jobs
• Compare to the margins the seller disclosed (or to industry benchmarks if seller had no records)

Healthy range by trade (approximate):

• Plumbing/electrical service: 45%-60% gross margin

• Landscaping/concreting: 35%-50% gross margin

• Cleaning: 40%-55% gross margin

• HVAC installs: 35%-50% gross margin

• Pest control: 50%-65% gross margin

• Identify any job types where your margin is consistently 10 percentage points below benchmark — investigate whether quoting is the issue, or whether material costs have changed

1.3 Cash Conversion and Debtor Days

• Check the debtor ageing report within the first week — understand what you've inherited
• Identify any invoices over 60 days old (these may be uncollectable)
• Set up a weekly debtor chase process if one doesn't exist
• Track your average debtor days at end of month 1 and month 3

Healthy target: under 30 days for most trades; under 21 days for businesses with commercial accounts. Over 45 days indicates a collections problem or customer disputes.

• Set up a direct debit or automated payment reminder system in the first 30 days — this alone can improve cashflow significantly

1.4 Monthly EBITDA vs Seller Disclosed

• At end of month 1, calculate your actual EBITDA and compare to the equivalent period from the seller's financials
• Adjust for known differences (your salary structure may differ from the seller's)
• Flag any gap of more than 20% for investigation

Note: a single month is not statistically meaningful. You're looking for directional signals, not conclusions. A 15% shortfall in month 1 might be seasonal; a 40% shortfall needs an explanation.

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Category 2: Operational KPIs

These numbers tell you whether the business is running efficiently — and whether staff are performing at the level the business needs to hit its financial targets.

2.1 Job Throughput (Jobs Completed Per Week)

• Establish how many jobs the business was completing per week under the previous owner (ask directly, or estimate from the job count in their invoicing system)
• Track your weekly job count from week 1
• Calculate jobs per field technician per week

Healthy range: depends heavily on job type. Service calls for plumbing/electrical: 6-10 jobs per tech per day. Installation jobs: 1-3 per tech per day. Cleaning: 4-8 residential jobs per crew per day.

• Identify if any single tech is consistently completing fewer jobs than peers — this may indicate training issues, vehicle problems, or disengagement

2.2 Quote-to-Win Conversion Rate

• Set up a quote register if one doesn't exist (a simple spreadsheet works to start)
• Track every quote sent and whether it converts to a job
• Calculate your conversion rate at the end of week 4 and week 8

Healthy range: 40%-70% for most residential service trades. Commercial quoting is typically lower (25%-45%) due to more competition.

• If your conversion rate drops more than 15 percentage points below the seller's disclosed rate, investigate: is it pricing, response speed, or the calibre of the person doing follow-up?

2.3 Average Job Value

• Calculate the average invoice value from the seller's last 12 months of data
• Track your average job value monthly from month 1
• Segment by job type if the business does multiple types of work

Average job value dropping is often the first signal that the quoting process has changed — either someone is under-quoting to win work, or the job mix has shifted toward smaller jobs.

2.4 Labour Utilisation Rate

• Calculate the total billable hours for each field technician as a percentage of their paid hours
• Set a target utilisation rate (typically 75%-85% for a well-run trades business)

Utilisation below 65% for more than 4 weeks means one of three things: not enough work booked, too much time on travel/admin, or excessive non-billable rework. Each has a different fix.

• Track travel time per job — anything over 30 minutes average travel time per job suggests scheduling inefficiency

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Category 3: Customer KPIs

Customer behaviour tells you whether the change of ownership has affected the business's reputation and relationships.

3.1 Customer Retention Rate

• Pull the list of customers who used the business in the 12 months before you bought it
• At end of month 3, check how many have placed at least one job with you
• Calculate: (returning customers / customers who could have returned) x 100

Healthy target: 70%-80% retention in the first 90 days for a business with a strong existing customer base. Under 50% signals a problem — either customers knew the owner personally, or there's been service quality degradation.

• Personally call any customer who spent more than $5,000 with the business in the past year and hasn't placed a job yet

3.2 Repeat Booking Rate

• Track what percentage of completed jobs result in a follow-on booking within 90 days
• For businesses with service plans or maintenance contracts: track whether existing contract customers are renewing or cancelling
• Log every cancellation reason

3.3 Referral Source Tracking

• Add a "how did you hear about us?" field to your job intake process
• Track whether word-of-mouth referrals are holding steady, growing, or declining in volume
• Note: referrals often lag by 30-60 days after a change of ownership, so month 1 data isn't conclusive

3.4 Online Review Momentum

• Check current Google review count and rating on settlement day — record both numbers
• Set up a process to ask every satisfied customer for a review (this is often automated with a simple follow-up message)
• Track monthly: total reviews, average rating, new reviews in last 30 days
• Respond to all reviews — positive and negative — within 48 hours

Target: minimum 2 new reviews per month for a small business. A rating below 4.2 on Google needs active attention.

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Category 4: Staff KPIs

Staff instability is the biggest operational risk in the first 90 days. Track early signals carefully.

4.1 Billable Hours Per Technician

• Compare each tech's billable hours in your first 4 weeks to the business's historical average per tech
• Flag any tech whose billable hours are more than 20% below the business average for 2+ consecutive weeks

This isn't about performance management in week 3 — it's about identifying who might be disengaged or struggling with the transition.

4.2 Absenteeism and Sick Days

• Track sick days and unplanned absences from day one
• More than 2 unplanned absences per person in the first month is worth a direct conversation
• Ask the seller before settlement what each person's sick day history looks like — it's public information and worth having

4.3 Staff Retention (the most important one)

• Record the full team roster on settlement day
• At end of month 1, end of month 2, and end of month 3: check how many are still in the business
• A single resignation in month 1 is possible; two or more in the first 30 days is a signal to investigate whether there's a team culture problem or someone is actively unsettling the group

For more on managing this transition, see the section on keeping key staff after the purchase.

4.4 Overtime and Call-Backs

• Track overtime hours per tech per week
• Excessive overtime (more than 5 hours per week consistently) suggests understaffing or job scheduling problems
• Track "call-backs" — jobs that need to be revisited because the work wasn't completed properly first time. More than 5% call-back rate indicates a quality control issue

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How to Use This Checklist

Week 1-2: Set up your tracking systems. You can't measure what you can't see. Get accounting software live, set up a job management system if one doesn't exist, and create a simple weekly reporting spreadsheet.

Week 3-8: Monitor weekly. Pull the numbers every Monday morning. Don't over-react to a single bad week — look for trends over 3-4 weeks before drawing conclusions.

Week 9-13: Set forward targets. By now you understand your baselines. This is when you move from "measuring reality" to "setting goals and improving."

If you want to pair this with an AI implementation roadmap — so you can start automating quote follow-up, job scheduling reminders, and customer communication in parallel with the KPI tracking — the AI Implementation Roadmap for Trades Businesses covers exactly that.

And if you haven't built out your broader first-quarter plan yet, the First 90 Days Action Plan Template puts all of this into a structured week-by-week schedule.