- Fiona Ettles
- Nov 18
- 3 min read
Should You Share Your Numbers With Your Team?
By Fiona Ettles, Partner at FinConnect
For owners who want performance, engagement, and a stronger valuation
Business owners often carry a deep understanding of the commercial reality of their firm. The question is not whether you know the numbers. The question is whether sharing selected financial data with your team helps the business perform better.
This idea came into focus during a recent CPD session I attended on courageous leadership. It raised a timely consideration: transparency requires courage, but it also builds capability, alignment, personal investment, and commercial maturity across the team.
There is no single perfect approach. But when done intentionally, sharing numbers can lift clarity and performance today and support succession and valuation outcomes in the long run.
Why Consider Sharing Financials?
Inside well-run firms, commercial understanding is a team sport. When people understand how the firm makes money, where value is created, and where it leaks, they:
Make better decisions, faster
Prioritise the work that drives outcomes, not just activity
Understand how their contribution links to career development and firm growth
Engage with the bigger picture rather than working in a silo
This is fundamentally about building commercial literacy. The more your team understands how the engine runs, the more capable they become in helping it run well.
Start With Intent
Before sharing financial information, be clear about why you are sharing it and what you want your team to understand. Numbers on their own do not drive behaviour. The meaning behind them does.
Many firms already use financial metrics in their reward structures, such as;
Reduction in client churn
Reduced WIP or improved turnaround time
EBIT percentage or gross margin targets
Number of new clients onboarded
Debtor days improvement
Increase in average fee per engagement
These metrics are practical levers and linking quarterly incentives to them can sharpen focus. However, incentives only work when the team understands the bigger picture.
The key question to answer
What opportunity do we want the team to see when we share the numbers?
If the message is simply that profit needs to increase, the team will usually hear cost-cutting and pressure or profiteering from owners. If the message is that reaching a certain scale and margin allows for growth, succession, development, and shared benefit, the team understands why the numbers matter.
This reframes profit from something taken out of the business to something that funds stability, opportunity and long-term sustainability.
When quarterly targets are clearly linked to both short-term rewards and long-term opportunity, alignment improves and performance becomes more consistent.
What to Share (and What to Keep High-Level)
You do not need to open the full P&L. The most effective approach is high-level structure rather than granular detail.
Useful to share:
Revenue run rate and revenue mix by service line
Gross margin trends
Expense categories as a percentage of revenue
Capacity and utilisation metrics
Debtor days and cash conversion
Business valuation progress against the long-term target
Keep aggregated or confidential:
Individual salary information
Supplier contracts
Any personally sensitive or private data
A simple and effective tool is a pie chart showing how each dollar of revenue is allocated. This helps communicate the cost of talent, the cost of operating the firm, the owner’s return, and the reinvestment required for future growth.
It reframes profit not as something taken, but as something that funds sustainability, stability and future opportunity.
If you would like to discuss this further, you can also book a call with our team.
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