apps/website/src/app/docs/content/understanding-metrics.mdx
Midday gives you real-time visibility into your business finances. This guide explains how each metric is calculated and what factors affect them.
Your financial dashboard shows several key metrics:
Understanding what goes into each calculation helps you make better decisions.
Cash balance is the total money available across all your connected cash accounts.
| Account Type | Examples | Included in Cash? |
|---|---|---|
| Depository | Checking, Savings | Yes |
| Other Asset | Money Market, Treasury | Yes |
| Credit | Credit Cards | No |
| Loan | Business Loans | No |
Credit card "available balance" isn't your money—it's borrowed money you'll need to pay back. Midday shows only the cash you actually have.
If you have accounts in different currencies, Midday converts them to your base currency using current exchange rates. Set your base currency in Settings.
If you disable an account in settings, its balance won't be included in your cash total. This is useful if you have accounts you want to track separately or legacy accounts you no longer use.
Burn rate measures how much cash you're consuming each month. It's calculated from your expense transactions.
Monthly Burn Rate = Total Expenses in Month
Midday calculates averages over 3-6 months to smooth out one-time spikes.
All expense transactions from enabled accounts, except:
This is important to understand. When you connect both a checking account and a credit card:
If both counted as expenses, you'd be counting the same money twice:
Midday excludes credit card payments from burn rate automatically. The actual expenses on your credit card still count.
Some transactions shouldn't count as burn rate even if they're categorized as expenses. You can exclude individual transactions by marking them as excluded in the transaction details.
Common exclusions:
Runway tells you how many months you can operate before running out of cash.
Runway = Cash Balance ÷ Average Monthly Burn Rate
Cash Balance (increases runway):
Burn Rate (decreases runway when higher):
| Runway | Status |
|---|---|
| 12+ months | Comfortable |
| 6-12 months | Healthy |
| 3-6 months | Caution—time to act |
| Under 3 months | Critical—immediate action needed |
These benchmarks vary by business stage and industry. An established profitable business might operate with less runway than a startup still finding product-market fit.
Revenue is the total money flowing into your business.
All transactions categorized under Revenue:
These are categorized under Revenue but with negative amounts, reducing your net revenue.
Revenue is based on when money hits your bank account, not when you invoice. If you send an invoice in January but get paid in February, it counts as February revenue.
For accrual-based accounting, work with your accountant on adjustments.
Profit is what remains after subtracting expenses from revenue.
Profit = Revenue - Expenses
Expenses include all non-excluded expense categories.
Profit Margin = (Profit ÷ Revenue) × 100%
Profit margin shows how efficiently you turn revenue into profit. A 20% margin means you keep $0.20 of every dollar earned.
Midday shows net profit (all expenses included). For gross profit (revenue minus only cost of goods sold), filter your reports to exclude operating expenses.
The revenue forecast shows projected incoming revenue for the coming months.
Unlike simple trend projections, Midday builds forecasts from known revenue sources:
Each forecast month shows a confidence score. Higher scores mean the forecast relies more on reliable, known sources like recurring invoices. Lower scores mean more of the projection comes from estimates.
To keep forecasts realistic, certain transactions are automatically excluded:
Learn more about revenue forecast →
Net position gives you a quick view of cash minus outstanding credit card debt.
Net Position = Cash Balance - Credit Card Balances
If you have $50,000 in checking but $15,000 on credit cards, your real position is $35,000. Net position shows you this at a glance.
Cash side:
Debt side:
Not included in net position:
Different account types affect different metrics:
| Account Type | Cash Balance | Burn Rate | Net Position (Cash) | Net Position (Debt) | Balance Sheet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Depository | Yes | Via transactions | Yes | No | Assets |
| Other Asset | Yes | Via transactions | Yes | No | Assets |
| Credit | No | Via transactions | No | Yes | Liabilities |
| Loan | No | Via transactions | No | No | Liabilities |
When you disable an account:
This is useful for:
All metrics can be viewed for different time periods:
Comparisons show you:
Connect all business accounts: Missing accounts mean incomplete data
Review auto-categorization: Spend 5 minutes weekly checking that categories are correct
Exclude one-time items: Large one-time expenses can skew burn rate
Set your base currency: Ensures multi-currency accounts convert correctly
Keep accounts enabled: Only disable accounts you truly want excluded
Categorize promptly: Uncategorized transactions affect accuracy
Learn about categories → Check your runway → View burn rate → Revenue forecast →