EBITDA Dashboard
Most small business owners know their revenue every week. Fewer know whether the business is making the operating profit they planned until the accountant sends the year-end figures, by which time there's nothing left to change.
EBITDA is the closest single number to that answer. It's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization: profit from running the business, before the bank, the tax bill and the equipment are taken out. The SEC's guidance on non-GAAP measures is precise about where it starts: "earnings" means net income as presented under GAAP. EBITDA isn't itself a GAAP measure, so there's no official version to look up. That's why it's worth tracking the same way every month.
The company on this dashboard is invented: a commercial grounds maintenance business in Ohio, doing landscaping and grounds care from spring to fall and snow and ice removal in the winter, for office parks, retail centers and apartment communities. None of the figures belong to a real business: they're modeled. One target below has a published benchmark behind it, and the table says which.
What is an EBITDA KPI Dashboard?
Overview
An EBITDA KPI dashboard shows whether the business made the operating profit it planned, whether profitability is keeping pace with revenue, and which line of the P&L explains the difference.
At the top are four numbers: EBITDA, EBITDA against budget, the variance, and EBITDA margin. Together they answer the two questions an owner asks first. Did we deliver what we expected? And are we keeping more of each dollar of revenue, or less?
Below them are the parts EBITDA is built from: net income, then the interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization added back to it. When EBITDA moves, they show whether the business changed or one of the add-backs did. A new equipment loan, for example, raises interest and depreciation but shouldn't move EBITDA at all.
Who benefits from this dashboard?
- Owner: EBITDA against budget and the margin show in one glance whether the year is on plan, months before the year-end accounts.
- Finance Manager or Outside Accountant: The add-back charts make the month-end review quicker. If EBITDA looks odd, the cause is usually visible in one line.
- Lender: Many small business loans test debt or interest cover against EBITDA. Tracking it monthly shows how close a covenant is long before a quarterly certificate is due.
- Operations Managers: A margin that falls while revenue grows usually points at labor, fuel or subcontractor costs, which are theirs to fix.
Judge a ratio over a quarter or a year from the totals, never by averaging the months. On this dashboard, averaging turns a year that beat its margin target into a miss.
Dashboard Example Overview
The company has about $3.8 million in annual revenue and is a C corporation, paying income tax at about 25%: the 21% federal rate in IRS Publication 542 plus state tax. It reports monthly against twelve KPIs:
- EBITDA: Net income plus interest expense, minus interest income, plus income taxes, depreciation and amortization.
- EBITDA vs Budget %: EBITDA divided by the EBITDA budget. 100% is on budget.
- EBITDA Variance %: EBITDA minus budget, divided by budget. 0% is on budget, and it shows misses as negative numbers, which makes them easier to spot.
- EBITDA Margin %: EBITDA divided by revenue. It shows whether growth is profitable growth.
- EBITDA Budget: The monthly figure from the annual plan, lower in winter, when grounds work stops and only snow contracts are running.
- Revenue: All sales for the month. It's here for the margin.
- Net Income: The bottom line of the P&L, the starting point for EBITDA.
- Interest Expense: Interest on a term loan and, from April 2026, an equipment loan.
- Interest Income: Interest earned on the cash balance. It's subtracted, because it isn't earned by operating the business.
- Income Taxes: The income tax expense on the month's P&L, not the estimated tax payments, which only go out four times a year.
- Depreciation: The monthly charge for trucks, mowers, plows and spreaders.
- Amortization: A customer list bought with a smaller competitor's contracts, and software. A flat $2,500 a month.
Here's how the two years played out.
From October 2024 to September 2025, the business made $430,080 of EBITDA on $3.34 million of revenue, a margin of 12.9%. It finished 1.2% ahead of budget, but four months fell short. The worst was January 2025: EBITDA of $21,432, 6.0% under budget, on a margin of 9.3%. Snow contracts kept the crews paid through the winter, but they didn't carry the overheads the way the summer grounds work did.
In March 2025 the company bought new mowing equipment outright, and depreciation rose from $8,600 to $9,000 a month. Interest didn't move, because no borrowing was involved, and that's the pattern to look for. Investment shows up in the add-backs, not in EBITDA.
The second year was stronger. From October 2025 to September 2026, EBITDA reached $573,316, up 33%, on revenue up 14% to $3.81 million. The margin rose to 15.1%. January was still the weakest month, but at 11.5% its margin was more than two points better than the January before.
In April 2026 the company took on an equipment loan for another truck and plow to serve a new contract. Depreciation stepped up to $10,150 a month and interest expense to $4,116. Net income took the hit. EBITDA didn't, and April's revenue was 16% higher than the April before.
June 2026 was the year's biggest miss: EBITDA of $57,025, 4.8% under budget, as installation projects slipped into the next month. July made it back, with the best month of the two years: EBITDA of $63,342, 6.1% over budget, on a margin of 17.6%.
Over the full year, EBITDA came in at 102.01% of budget. And the margin, at 15.07%, just cleared its 15% target, in line with the 15.65% Aswath Damodaran's January 2026 data shows for US listed business and consumer services companies.
Creating an EBITDA Dashboard in SimpleKPI
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Step 1 Write down your definition
Start from net income, and decide once which lines are added back. Interest income comes off. A tax benefit is negative. Payroll, sales and property taxes stay in, because only income taxes are added back. If you adjust for one-off items, call the result adjusted EBITDA and keep it separate.
Our EBITDA calculator lets you check the definition against a month you already know.
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Step 2 Track the parts, not just the total
Enter net income, interest expense, interest income, income taxes, depreciation and amortization every month, and build EBITDA as a calculated KPI from them. Use the P&L charges, not cash paid: tax expense rather than estimated payments, and the depreciation charge rather than the cost of what you bought.
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Step 3 Set the percentages to work from the totals
For EBITDA vs budget, the variance and the margin, set Calculate by to Total. A quarter or a year is then total EBITDA divided by total budget or revenue, not an average of the months. On this dashboard that's the difference between a 15.07% margin and 14.85%, on either side of the target.
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Step 4 Compare every number with something
Put the budget on the same chart as EBITDA, and give each percentage a target so misses show red. In a seasonal business, compare each month with the same month last year as well, or every winter will look like a crisis.
List of EBITDA KPIs
Only EBITDA margin is compared with a published figure here. The other targets are this example's, so replace them with your own budget and history.
| KPI Name | Typical Target | Description / Calculation |
|---|---|---|
| EBITDA | The monthly budget | Net income + interest expense − interest income + income taxes + depreciation + amortization. |
| EBITDA vs Budget % | ≥ 100% (starting point) | EBITDA ÷ EBITDA budget × 100, calculated from the period totals. |
| EBITDA Variance % | ≥ 0% (starting point) | (EBITDA − EBITDA budget) ÷ EBITDA budget × 100, calculated from the period totals. |
| EBITDA Margin % | ≥ 15% (Damodaran, business and consumer services: 15.65%) | EBITDA ÷ revenue × 100, calculated from the period totals. |
| EBITDA Budget | n/a | The monthly EBITDA figure from the annual plan. |
| Revenue | ≥ $320,000 a month (starting point) | All sales for the month. |
| Net Income | n/a | The bottom line of the P&L. Judged through EBITDA. |
| Interest Expense | n/a | Interest on loans, credit lines and finance leases. |
| Interest Income | n/a | Interest earned on cash. Subtracted in EBITDA. |
| Income Taxes | n/a | Income tax expense on the P&L. A tax benefit is entered as a negative. |
| Depreciation | n/a | The monthly depreciation charge on equipment, vehicles and buildings. |
| Amortization | n/a | The monthly write-down of intangibles, such as purchased customer lists or software. |
Why EBITDA Dashboards Matter
Net income is the number on the tax return, but it mixes three different stories: how the business ran, how it's financed and what it owns. Buy a truck on a loan and net income falls for years, even if the truck makes the business more profitable from its first month.
EBITDA separates the first story from the other two. That's why lenders write covenants against it and buyers value larger businesses as a multiple of it. For an owner, it's the fairest way to compare this month with the same month last year when the loans and the equipment have changed in between.
It isn't cash, though. A business can grow EBITDA every month while customers pay more slowly and new equipment drains the bank account. That's why the parts sit on the same screen: the add-backs show what EBITDA leaves out, and a growing gap between EBITDA and net income is worth a question.
If your business is an S corp, the IRS treats its income as passing through to its shareholders for federal tax. The income tax line is usually small or empty, but everything else on this dashboard works the same way.
Building it in SimpleKPI
Build this dashboard yourself with SimpleKPI's KPI dashboards, or start from the Financial KPIs template. The mechanics are the same whatever you track:
- KPIs: each one gets a target, an entry frequency and tags, so you can report by team, site, product or whatever you split the numbers by.
- Data: type numbers in, import a spreadsheet, or use an integration or the API. The dashboard updates as each number lands, so daily and monthly KPIs sit side by side.
- Reports: scheduled KPI reports email the numbers to people who never log in.
- AI: Kip, the built-in AI, suggests targets and flags indicative benchmarks (AI estimates, not peer data) once some history builds up.
- Price: $79 a month for unlimited users and KPIs, as one flat price, with a 14-day free trial and no card needed.