Guide · 15 minutes
A Sankey diagram for a board deck, built once and re-run every quarter.
The revenue-to-profit slide reads faster than any table in the pack. This is how to draw it so it earns the slide, and how to make the next quarter cost one paste instead of one afternoon.
The diagram below is drawn from the numbers shown. Nothing on this page is a mock-up.
The slide we start from
One quarter, in thousands, the lines a reporting pack already contains.
| Recurring revenue | $1,840k |
|---|---|
| Services | $420k |
| Add-ons | $160k |
| Total revenue | $2,420k |
| less Cost of revenue | $610k |
| Gross profit | $1,810k |
| less Sales & marketing | $720k |
| less R&D | $540k |
| less General & admin | $300k |
| Operating profit | $250k |
What those lines draw
The 9 lines above, drawn at deck size. This is the slide, before it goes in the deck.
The six steps
- 1
Pick the one diagram the deck needs
A board pack has one slide where money moves. For most companies it is the period from revenue to operating profit. Every other candidate diagram is a cut of that one.
Cash flow works as the second diagram, headcount as the third. One per deck keeps them read.
- 2
Draw it at deck size, not screen size
A slide is 1600 by 900. That is the export size here, so the file drops onto the slide without resizing. Labels stay sharp when projected.
A screenshot of a browser window does neither. The text goes soft the moment the projector scales it.
- 3
Name nodes the way the board already names them
The diagram is not the place to introduce new vocabulary. If the pack says cost of revenue, the node says cost of revenue.
Five or six target nodes stay readable. Group the rest into one node called other, and be ready to name what is in it.
- 4
Let the arithmetic be the argument
Read left to right, revenue splits into cost and gross profit. Gross profit then splits into operating costs and operating profit. No subtraction for the reader to do.
When a board member asks where the money went, the answer is a ribbon width. Every number on the diagram matches the pack's tables.
- 5
Export clean, once
The watermarked PNG is free, and it is the right file for a draft. The slide that goes in the pack wants the clean export: PNG or SVG at deck size, which a Pass buys.
A Pass is $12 for a week, $39 for a quarter or $99 for a year, paid once. If the deck recurs, the quarter usually covers it.
- 6
Next quarter, paste and re-run
The slide comes back every quarter, and the diagram behind it should not be rebuilt. Save it once, then paste the new numbers into the same diagram and re-run it.
Node order, theme and export size stay exactly where they were, so the slide is comparable quarter to quarter. The quarter you replaced is kept as a dated snapshot.
It opens on the diagram above, deck size already set. Select all, paste your own numbers over them.
Where it goes wrong
Putting three diagrams on one slide
Three half-size diagrams read as wallpaper. One diagram per slide, drawn large, carries more than three crowded ones.
Labelling every flow
Labels inside thin ribbons collide and turn into noise. Label the nodes, and let the widths carry the comparison. The board reads totals; the appendix carries decimals.
Rounding inconsistently
$1,840k next to $1.8m reads as two different amounts. Keep one notation across the diagram, and the pasted values keep whatever notation you paste.
Rebuilding it every quarter
The third rebuild is where the slide stops matching the last one. Save the diagram, and the fourth quarter is one paste.
Questions
- What is a Sankey diagram in a board deck for?
- Showing where the money went in one picture. Revenue in on the left, cost and profit out on the right, widths a board member can compare at a glance.
- Which Sankey diagram belongs in a board pack?
- The period from revenue to operating profit. Every other diagram in the pack is a cut of that one, and none of the tables answer it as fast.
- How big should the export be?
- Deck size, 1600 by 900. It drops onto a 16:9 slide without resizing and stays sharp when projected.
- Is it credible in a board setting?
- Yes, when the numbers on the diagram are the same numbers as the pack's tables and the node names match the pack's vocabulary. The diagram is a view of the pack, not a replacement for it.
- What does it cost?
- Building and styling a diagram is free and needs no account, and a watermarked PNG is free. A Pass is $12 for a week, $39 for a quarter or $99 for a year, paid once.
Other starting points
Passes are paid once: $12 for a week, $39 for a quarter, $99 for a year. A Pass buys saving, re-running, saved themes and clean PNG or SVG export.