The 12 Marina KPIs Every GM Should Track Weekly (with the Math)

Most marina GMs review the P&L monthly. By the time monthly numbers are reconciled, the operational decisions that produced them are 30-60 days old. By the time quarterly reports go to ownership or investors, the corrective actions are 90+ days too late.

Weekly KPI tracking compresses this loop. Twelve specific metrics — measurable from any modern marina software in 5 minutes per week — surface revenue, retention, and operational issues while they're still actionable. This is the dashboard the best operators we've talked to use, with the math + benchmarks for each metric.

#Category 1: Occupancy + Revenue (KPIs 1-4)

#KPI 1: Occupancy rate by slip category

**Formula:** (occupied slip-nights this week ÷ available slip-nights this week) × 100, broken out by annual / seasonal / transient.

**Why weekly:** monthly occupancy hides which weeks are filling and which are empty. Weekly view shows demand patterns + lets you reprice or reroute transient capacity to fill gaps before they're past.

**Benchmarks:** Annual at 88-95% is healthy. Seasonal at 78-90% during season. Transient varies wildly — 30-60% weekday, 70-100% weekend in season.

**What to do when it's off:** Annual <85% → marketing problem or pricing problem, and our playbook on filling marina slips covers both. Transient <40% on weekends in season → channel-manager visibility issue (not listed on Dockwa/Snag-A-Slip properly?). Seasonal <75% in season → demand softness; consider one-off promotions.

#KPI 2: Revenue per linear foot (RevPLF)

**Formula:** total revenue this week ÷ total linear feet of slip space.

**Why weekly:** the institutional benchmark metric for marina performance. Investors + buyers use RevPLF; operators should too. Weekly tracking shows seasonality + lets you measure pricing changes.

**Benchmarks:** $4-$8 per linear foot per week for a typical US coastal marina. $10-$15+ for premium markets. Multiply by 52 for annualized comparison: $200-$800/LF/yr depending on region. When RevPLF is the lagging number you want to move, start with the levers in increasing revenue per slip.

#KPI 3: Transient revenue this week vs. same week last year

**Formula:** transient revenue this week ÷ transient revenue same week last year. Express as percent change.

**Why weekly:** transient is the most volatile revenue line + the most pricing-sensitive. Year-over-year same-week comparison filters out seasonality. Trends emerging week-by-week.

**Benchmarks:** flat year-over-year is normal. +10% YoY is good (you're gaining share). -10% YoY is concerning (channel visibility issue or pricing issue).

#KPI 4: Fuel volume + attach rate

**Formula:** gallons sold this week (broken out by gas + diesel). Plus attach rate = unique slip customers buying fuel this week ÷ total active slip customers.

**Why weekly:** fuel is high-frequency, high-volume. Weekly attach rate is the leading indicator of slip-customer engagement — declining attach is a churn signal before any other metric shows it.

**Benchmarks:** 35-45% attach rate weekly during peak season is industry-typical. 55%+ is excellent. <30% during peak season suggests fuel-pricing issue or customer-experience issue — the seven levers of fuel-dock profitability cover both.

#Category 2: Customer Health (KPIs 5-7)

#KPI 5: Customer churn this week (annual contracts)

**Formula:** annual customers who left this week ÷ total annual customers at week start. Track running 4-week + 13-week + annualized.

**Why weekly:** annual churn is the highest-impact revenue metric. Catching a 3-customer departure in week 1 lets you investigate root cause before week 4 brings 5 more.

**Benchmarks:** annualized 8-12% is industry average. Below 8% is excellent. Above 15% is operational problem (price increase, service quality, or competitor pressure).

#KPI 6: At-risk customer count

**Formula:** unique customers with one or more of: declining fuel attach (down 30%+ vs. prior period), missed service interval, late payment 30+ days, expiring insurance not renewed, contract within 90 days of expiration with no renewal yet.

**Why weekly:** at-risk customers are saveable; churned customers are not. Weekly visibility lets the GM (or sales lead) call before the customer signs with a competitor — the early-intervention half of a broader customer experience and retention strategy.

**Benchmarks:** 5-10% of annual customers will hit at least one at-risk signal in a given week. The signal-to-noise ratio matters — too many false positives and staff ignore the alerts. Modern software lets you tune the thresholds.

#KPI 7: New customer signups this week

**Formula:** annual contracts started this week + transient first-time customers this week + new service customers this week. Broken out by acquisition source if you can track it.

**Why weekly:** acquisition velocity is the second-highest impact growth metric (after churn). Weekly trends reveal seasonal patterns + marketing campaign effects.

**Benchmarks:** highly variable by marina + season. Track week-over-week trend rather than absolute number. If signups drop 30%+ vs. trailing 4-week average without obvious cause, investigate.

#Category 3: Operations + Cost (KPIs 8-10)

#KPI 8: A/R aging — total + over 30 days

**Formula:** total outstanding A/R + breakdown by 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 90+ days. Weekly delta vs. prior week.

**Why weekly:** A/R that ages past 60 days collects at <50% rate. A/R caught at 31-45 days collects at 85%+. Weekly visibility means you actually catch slow-paying customers before they're uncollectable.

**Benchmarks:** A/R over 60 days should be <2% of total revenue. A/R over 90 days should be <0.5%. If either trends up week-over-week, billing process or customer-base risk is real — and persistent A/R leakage is often a symptom of disconnected customer records.

#KPI 9: Labor hours + cost vs. budget

**Formula:** total payroll hours this week vs. budgeted hours. Total payroll cost this week vs. budgeted cost.

**Why weekly:** labor is typically the largest controllable expense at a marina (35-50% of operating cost). Weekly variance reveals scheduling problems, overtime issues, or unbudgeted positions before they compound monthly.

**Benchmarks:** ±5% of budget is normal weekly variance. Sustained +10%+ overage is a signal to investigate (overtime patterns, missed shift coverage, new hires not yet at productive output).

#KPI 10: Open work orders + average age

**Formula:** count of open work orders + average days since opened. Broken out by status (estimate, approved, in-progress, awaiting parts, awaiting customer).

**Why weekly:** stale work orders are unrecognized revenue. A 30-day-old "awaiting customer approval" estimate is either lost revenue or a customer-communication failure. Weekly review forces resolution.

**Benchmarks:** average open age <10 days is healthy. >20 days suggests either staff bottleneck or process gap. >30 days is operational debt.

#Category 4: Marketing + Acquisition (KPIs 11-12)

#KPI 11: Inbound inquiries this week (by source)

**Formula:** count of new inbound inquiries (web form, phone, Dockwa, Snag-A-Slip, walk-in, referral) broken out by source.

**Why weekly:** marketing channels have different lag patterns. Local SEO is steady; paid ads spike when budgeted; referrals concentrate in season. Weekly visibility shows which channels are working + which are dead.

**Benchmarks:** depends heavily on marina size + market. Track trends, not absolute numbers. If a previously-productive channel (Dockwa, referrals) drops to zero for 3+ weeks, something's wrong (listing went down, referral relationship cooled, etc.).

#KPI 12: Inquiry-to-customer conversion rate

**Formula:** customers who signed up this week ÷ inquiries received N weeks ago (where N = typical sales cycle, often 2-4 weeks for transient, 6-12 weeks for annual).

**Why weekly:** conversion rate variance reveals sales-process health. If conversion drops without inquiry volume changing, sales follow-up or pricing has shifted.

**Benchmarks:** transient inquiry → booking conversion: 20-35% for well-run marinas. Annual inquiry → contract conversion: 8-18% (longer cycle, more decision factors).

#How to build the weekly dashboard

If your marina runs on modern software (Marine OS, Marina Master, Molo, Harbour Assist, etc.), most of these KPIs are pre-built reports. The setup is typically 1-2 hours one-time, then automatic.

If your marina runs on spreadsheets + paper logs, you can still track these — but compilation takes 1-2 hours per week. That's actually a worthwhile investment for the operational insight even before you migrate to integrated software. Just be honest about the real cost of running on spreadsheets.

#The Monday morning review

A practical weekly cadence:

1. 1**Monday 8:00 AM**: GM pulls the 12-KPI dashboard (5 minutes).
2. 2**Monday 8:05 AM**: GM notes 1-3 metrics that need action this week (5 minutes).
3. 3**Monday 8:30 AM**: GM staff meeting (15 minutes). Share the metrics + the actions. Assign owners + deadlines.
4. 4**Friday 4:00 PM**: GM reviews progress on the week's actions (5 minutes).
5. 5**Monday 8:00 AM next week**: dashboard again. Did the actions move the metrics? Or did the metrics move on their own? Or did nothing change?

This cadence creates a tight operational loop. Issues surface weekly. Actions get assigned. Results get measured. Compounding compounds.

#Common KPI dashboard mistakes

• Tracking 50 metrics → none get acted on. Stick to 12 that drive decisions.
• Only checking the dashboard monthly → defeats the whole point. Weekly or skip it.
• Looking at metrics without setting benchmarks → you don't know what's good or bad.
• Sharing the dashboard with staff without context → "occupancy is 78%" without explanation creates confusion. "Occupancy is 78%, which is 4 points below our trailing 4-week average — let's investigate" creates action.
• Treating the dashboard as a performance review tool → staff hide bad numbers. Use it for diagnosis, not punishment.

#For multi-property operators

If you run multiple marinas (chain, family-owned cluster, PE-owned roll-up), the 12-KPI dashboard rolls up to property comparison. Same metrics, multiple columns, ranked. This becomes the weekly review tool for multi-property and chain operators doing portfolio-level management.

Properties that systematically underperform on 3+ metrics for 4+ weeks warrant investigation. Properties that systematically outperform are operational case studies worth replicating.