Most SaaS dashboards track the right metrics. The harder question is what each one is actually telling you.
Take LTV to CAC. A worked example (1,000 customers, 2% monthly churn, $300 CAC, $100 in monthly revenue per customer) lands at an LTV near $5,000 and a ratio around 16.7 to 1. That reads like a clear win. But the benchmark most investors use is closer to 3 to 1, and a ratio running well above it often points to room for more investment in acquisition, not less. Read that way, the number is less a verdict than a question: are you growing as fast as the economics allow?
That is the practical difference between finance as a system of record and finance as infrastructure for decisions.