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    MIS

    Management information systems turn raw sales, operations and people data into a monthly picture of the business that a board or an investor can trust and act on.

    Capability

    How we help with MIS

    Most companies measure their sales precisely and their information not at all.

    1. Find where the numbers actually live

      Sales in a CRM, operations in a spreadsheet, people in a payroll tool, cash in the bank. The first job is establishing which source is authoritative for each number.

    2. Agree the definitions

      Most reporting disagreements are definition disagreements. What counts as a closed deal, when revenue is recognised, which headcount is billable. Written down once, used everywhere.

    3. Build the monthly pack

      One document that tells the story of the month: what happened, why it differed from plan, and what it means for the next quarter. Built to be read by a board, not assembled to satisfy one.

    4. Move it from manual to automatic

      Once the definitions are stable the assembly can be automated. Doing it in that order is why our packs survive the month someone is on leave.

    What MIS delivers

    • Sales data

      Revenue and the CRM: what was sold, at what price, to whom, and what is still in the funnel.

      • Revenue by customer, product and channel
      • Funnel and conversion, shared with the Revenue Operating System
      • Bookings, billings and collections that reconcile

    • Operations data

      SLAs, quality, onboarding, project closures and billing: the stream most companies have never instrumented.

      • Client onboarding and closure tracked end to end
      • SLA and quality measures that feed the review, not a wall
      • Billing triggers tied to delivery, not to memory

    • People data

      Headcount, cost and capacity, read from whatever HRMS or master the company keeps, and forecast forward.

      • Headcount master connected, not retyped
      • People cost forecast by client and by future addition
      • Capacity against the plan, so hiring is a finance decision

    Moving up the levels

    The MIS Maturity assessment places a company on five levels, from Reactive to Institutional. The work that moves a company between them is the same five steps every time.

    1. 01

      Source

      Know where every number comes from and whether the source can be trusted. Most companies struggle only to collate; this is why.

    2. 02

      Collate

      One place, one cadence, three streams. The monthly pack exists and the numbers in it agree with each other.

    3. 03

      Narrative

      The numbers say something. Variance has a cause, trends have an owner, and the pack reads as an account of the month.

    4. 04

      Storyboard

      The narrative built for its reader: a board, a lender, an investor, each with the view they need and none they do not.

    5. 05

      Capital-ready

      Diligence finds what the MIS already shows. Level 4 reporting on a Level 1 source is a Level 1 company, and this is where that stops being true.

    Why SRF for MIS

    • Three streams, not one: sales, operations and people, because a P&L alone is not information
    • Implemented in a structured way and moved up the levels over time, which is the value proposition, not a one-off pack
    • The MIS Maturity assessment shows the starting level before the first engagement
    • The same team runs FP&A operations, so the MIS is built to be used monthly, not admired once

    FAQ

    Questions founders ask about MIS

    What does MIS stand for?

    Management information systems. In Indian practice it usually means the monthly reporting pack a management team and a board use to run the business, covering financial and operational numbers together.

    How is MIS different from financial statements?

    Financial statements are backward-looking and built for statutory compliance. An MIS is built for decisions: it carries operational drivers, comparisons to plan, and the leading indicators that say what is about to happen rather than what already did.

    What should an MIS pack contain?

    At minimum the profit and loss against plan, cash and runway, the revenue pipeline, unit economics for the core product, and headcount. Beyond that it depends on what the business actually runs on, which is the part worth spending time deciding.

    How long does it take to set up?

    The reporting itself can be built in weeks. The part that takes longer is agreeing definitions across teams, because that is where the real disagreements surface, and skipping it produces a pack nobody trusts.

    Find out where you stand

    What our research says about MIS

    If the sales team owns the revenue data, revenue will drift optimistic, not through dishonesty, but through the natural pull of incentive. If operations owns the delivery data, delays get quietly softened.

    Sriram Chidambaram, in The Information Stack, explained

    Accounting is the system of record for what happened. MIS is the system of view for what is happening. Planning is the system of decision for what should happen.

    Srikar Kedarisetty, in Integrating Accounting, MIS, and Planning Tools

    Guides and downloads on MIS

    E-books and masterclass material from the SRF library, free to download.

    The people behind MIS

    MIS is run by the studio team: one multidisciplinary team whose pods work in tandem, matched to the sector and the stage the company is in.

    Karthik Beknal

    Financial Planning & Analysis pod

    Led by Karthik Beknal

    Lead - Strategy Consulting & FP&A. Plans, forecasts and tracks performance.

    See the pod structure
    Studio TeamThe operators, investors and builders who run engagements end to end.Meet them

    Where we apply MIS: the industries this capability serves

    What usually runs alongside this