The email from the procurement team
A company that buys catering from your social enterprise has a sustainability or community report to write. Their procurement team emails asking for 'the social impact of our spend with you this year': how many people you employed or trained, how many hours of work experience their orders supported, anything they can quote.
The manager spends an afternoon on it. She works out the customer's spend from the accounts, then tries to relate it to trainee hours in the kitchen. She writes a paragraph and a few numbers. A month later another customer asks the same thing in a different format, and she starts again. She is never sure the figures would hold up if anyone questioned them.
Why impact per customer is hard
Your impact is real, but it is recorded in delivery systems, while your customers' spend is recorded in the accounts. Linking the two needs a method, and most social enterprises have never written one down.
- Sales are in the accounts; trainee hours and outcomes are in separate records.
- Trainees work on many customers' orders, so hours cannot be counted per order by hand.
- Customers ask in different formats, from a sentence to a detailed template.
- There is no agreed method, so figures change each time someone calculates them.
- The risk of overstating impact makes careful managers reluctant to give numbers at all.
How impact is attributed to spend, and what claims are appropriate, are decisions for your board. We do not recommend a methodology or inflate figures. We apply the method your board agrees, consistently, and show the working.
What ad hoc answers cost
Time, for a start. Each request takes a manager away from running the business.
Credibility is the bigger cost. Figures calculated differently each time can contradict each other, and a customer who notices will trust the next answer less. On the other hand, a vague answer gives a customer nothing to put in their report, and they may choose a supplier who can.
And a sales opportunity is missed. Clear evidence of impact is one of the strongest reasons a business chooses a social enterprise supplier.
Impact statements from real records
What we build links sales to delivery activity and produces a statement per customer.
- Your board agrees a simple, written method, such as allocating trainee hours in the kitchen to catering orders in proportion to sales value, or recording trainee involvement per job where that is practical.
- Sales per customer come from your accounting software, such as Xero or QuickBooks, or your order system.
- Trainee and supported employee hours come from your timesheets or rota, tagged by the part of the business they worked in.
- Rules apply the agreed method each period, giving hours of paid work or training supported per customer, and other measures your board approves.
- A statement is generated per customer per period: their spend, what it supported under your method, a short description of your mission, and an optional story from a trainee who agreed to share it.
- A method note is attached to every statement, so the customer can see how the figures were worked out.
| Measure | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Customer spend | Accounts or order system |
| Trainee hours supported | Timesheets allocated by your agreed method |
| People trained or employed in the period | Programme records |
| Story or quote | Trainee who agreed to share, approved by them |
Figures are only produced for measures your records support. If something cannot be evidenced, it is left out rather than estimated.
The next procurement request
The procurement team emails in January. The manager opens the customer's statement for last year: spend, trainee hours supported under your method, and a short paragraph she wrote once and reuses. A trainee who agreed to share his story is quoted, with his approval. The method note is attached. It takes ten minutes.
Two other customers get statements in the same format at the same time, and the figures agree with each other.
Do customers ask you for impact figures?
- Business customers ask what their spend achieved.
- Each answer is worked out from scratch.
- Figures are calculated differently each time.
- You are unsure your figures would stand up to questions.
- You give vague answers to avoid overclaiming.