<aside> 📋 Frequency: Monthly | Time: 60 min | Trigger: Last business day of each month

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Revenue predictability is a systems problem. Without a monthly financial review, you find out you're off-track at the quarter — when there's no time to recover. Running this SOP on the last business day of every month keeps you inside the numbers rather than surprised by them: you know your realization rate, your trajectory against annual targets, and whether this month's client mix is serving you or just keeping you busy.

Prerequisites

• All invoices issued and payments received this month recorded in your accounting tool (bookkeeping software, spreadsheet, or equivalent)
• Your current annual revenue targets (output from the Revenue Goal Reverse Engineer skill) — specifically the monthly milestone breakdown to compare actuals against
• Time logs or estimated hours per client for the month (exact tracking preferred, reasonable estimates acceptable)
• Prior month's financial review notes for trend comparison

Procedure

1. Pull this month's revenue total from your accounting tool. Confirm all issued invoices are recorded and any outstanding payments are flagged with due dates.
2. Run the Client Profitability Analyzer skill with each active client's monthly revenue and estimated hours as input. Review the output for this month's realization rate by client.
3. Compare this month's revenue against your monthly milestone from the Revenue Goal Reverse Engineer output. Note whether you're ahead, on track, or behind — and by how much.
4. Flag any client whose realization rate dropped significantly month-over-month. For each, determine the cause: scope creep, underpricing, or a one-time event. Scope creep gets addressed before next month's SOW cycle.
5. Review recurring revenue vs. project revenue split. If the recurring portion is below your target mix, note it as a pipeline priority for the coming month.
6. Record the month's summary — total revenue, realization rate, variance to target, and any action items — in your financial log. This becomes the comparison point for next month's review and feeds your Quarterly Business Review Prep.

Expected Outcome

You'll have this month's revenue total confirmed, a realization rate for each active client, a variance figure against your annual target milestone, and a documented list of action items — scope conversations, pipeline adjustments, or billing corrections — to carry into next month.

<aside> ⚠️ Common mistakes:

— Reviewing revenue without reviewing hours. A strong revenue month built on an unsustainable hours load isn't a good month — it's a warning. Realization rate is the number that tells you whether this practice is working or just moving fast.

— Skipping the review when it's been a good month. Good months are exactly when the review matters — they show you what's working so you can repeat it, and they establish the baseline that makes a slow month detectable early.

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