As Business Angel Investors we have many years of business experience and also have access to a large resource
of business and investing best practice.  From time to time we will update this page with links to sites which we consider include best practice examples and we will include files & explanations which may be of use to the wider community.

If there is anything that you would like to see included or if you have any questions relating to Business Angel investing or Business Management please contact us.

Trailing 12 Month Graphs

T12 (Trailing 12 Month) graphs are a series of points where for each point (for a specific month) the value is the sum of the data for that month and the preceding 11 months.  Why T12s?  The main sales factors for most companies include some level of seasonality and hence if graphing Turnover, say, it might be natural to expect a dip at some point in the year, for example during the summer holiday season.   The problem when looking at such graphs is whether the dip this year is better or worse than the previous year’s dip, is the subsequent rise better or worse?   T12s overcome these interpretive issues as they remove seasonality from the data points because each data point includes a full year.  Therefore for Turnover, up is good, down is bad – no interpretation.   Hence T12 graphs provide a quick and totally unambiguous picture of company performance. 

For a fuller description of the rationale for Trailing 12 Month Graphs and how they can provide a quick, simple and insightful view of your business performance you can download our description file and our template and example Excel spreadsheets here.