Blog · Board and management reporting · Education
The ten sales KPIs a company selling to schools, trusts, colleges and universities should run on, each with its formula, the export it comes from and what it tells you: licence utilisation per institution, renewal rate by count and value, renewal watch, price uplift realised against proposed, programme or product fit, group and trust penetration, adoption by purchase cohort, budget cycle coverage, onboarding completion, and customer concentration by contracting entity. Also the three measures most providers miss, the figures to drop, the identities, and who owns what.
Education customers buy on an annual budget, use the product in term time, and often contract through a group that the usage data never mentions. The measures that matter connect usage to renewal, and the school to the entity that signs.
| # | Measure | Formula | Export | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Licence utilisation | Active users in term ÷ seats or licences bought, per institution, against the curve for its months since start | Usage export; contract file | Institutions that will reduce or cancel |
| 2 | Renewal rate, count and value | Contracts renewed ÷ due; prior value of renewed ÷ prior value due | Contract file | Whether the ones leaving are the large ones |
| 3 | Renewal watch | Institutions renewing within two terms with utilisation under the threshold, by value | Usage export; contract file | The call list, while the budget is open |
| 4 | Uplift realised against proposed | Renewed price ÷ prior price − 1, against the uplift proposed | Contract file; proposals | Increases negotiated away |
| 5 | Programme and product fit | Products held ÷ products relevant to the phase, size and curriculum | Ledger; customer master | Institutions with half of what would suit them |
| 6 | Group and trust penetration | Schools in the group using the product ÷ schools in the group | Customer master with group links; ledger | Groups where a third of schools are customers |
| 7 | Adoption by purchase cohort | Products held and usage now, by year of first purchase | Ledger; usage | Whether older customers deepen or fade |
| 8 | Budget cycle coverage | Value of renewals with a two-way contact inside the budget window ÷ value due | CRM; contract file; budget calendar | Renewals nobody spoke to in time |
| 9 | Onboarding completion | New institutions reaching the setup and first-use milestones within a term ÷ new institutions | Usage; onboarding records | First renewals at risk from the start |
| 10 | Concentration by contracting entity | Top ten entities' share of revenue, with schools rolled up | Ledger; customer master | Dependence visible only after roll-up |
Every one of these is computed per account, per account manager and region, and in total, and every one carries an identity that must hold before the table is shown.
Utilisation against seats bought. Usage sits with the product team and contracts with sales; nobody divides one by the other per institution.
The contracting entity. The customer list is a list of schools.
Uplift realised. Proposed once, conceded many times.
A trust of 28 schools holds 4,200 licences. In-term active users number 1,900: 45 percent. Eleven schools are above 70 percent and nine below 20. The contract renews in seven months, which means the trust sets its budget in three. The account is recorded as 28 separate customers, each small, and no one owns the trust-level conversation. One decision covers $168,000 a year.
Number of schools as customers. Roll up to the entity that signs.
Logins in total. Per institution, against seats bought.
Renewal rate by count alone. Always with value.
| Table | Must hold |
|---|---|
| Licences | Licences bought = active + inactive assigned + unassigned |
| Renewals | Due = renewed + reduced + lost + pending |
| Groups | Every school links to one contracting entity or is marked independent |
| Cohorts | Cohort revenue sums to the ledger |
A table whose identity fails is a table with a row missing or counted twice. It is not shown until it is fixed.
| Measure | Owner | Reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| Renewal watch; budget cycle coverage | Account managers; head of sales | Monthly, weekly in budget season |
| Utilisation; onboarding completion | Customer success | Monthly |
| Renewal rate; uplift realised | Chief executive; finance | Termly |
| Group penetration; fit; concentration | Head of sales | Termly |
A measure with no owner is a metric, not a KPI; see KPI versus metric versus measure.
Ten measures from usage, contracts and a customer master that knows who signs. Divide usage by seats, roll schools up to the entity, and talk before the budget closes. Covirage computes all of them from the exports education providers already produce, files only, with the definitions stated and the identities checked. See Covirage for education providers.
In many systems the school uses the product and a trust, district or group signs for it. Reported by school, a provider sees thirty small customers. In fact it has one customer making one decision, and losing it loses thirty. Linking every school to the entity that contracts changes concentration, renewal risk and the account plan.
Before the budget is set, not before the contract ends. For schools that is usually one to two terms ahead of renewal. Coverage timed to the budget cycle asks whether each institution due to renew had a real conversation inside that window. After the budget is fixed, the decision has been made.
The price increase that actually appears on the renewed contract, against what was proposed. A provider proposing 6 percent across the base and realising 2.3 has negotiated away most of it, institution by institution, often without anyone seeing the total. By account manager and by institution size it shows where.