What are OKRs? Objectives and Key Results
If a client asks what are OKRs objectives and key results, answer before you open the pack. OKRs are a quarterly structure with two parts. An objective is the priority, written so a director can say it without notes. A key result is the proof: a number that moves from a baseline to a target by a date, with one owner. The management accounts you already produce stay in place. OKRs are how you and the client choose which of those figures to move before the next review.
Partners and managers can use that explanation in the meeting, then leave something the client will still recognise in 90 days. This page defines objective, key result, and KPI, shows when to drop the acronym, and works one example for a £3m UK services firm.
Why the numbers meeting ends without a decision
The bottleneck is not the quality of the accounts. Your team can already explain gross margin, cash, and debtor days. The meeting still closes on "let us keep an eye on that", because nobody named a priority, a target, or a person. The same issues return next quarter.
That gap is also a capacity problem. Xero's Modern Practice Playbook, from a UK survey of 520 independent senior accountants and bookkeepers published in August 2026, reports that only just over half of firms currently provide advisory, with 19% citing capacity as a key barrier. The same release notes that advisory carries the highest profit margin of any service those firms offer, at 51%. Hours you free up become advisory when the meeting ends with priorities and owners, not a longer commentary on last month.
Without that list, the extra fee still looks like reporting. Test the next review: can the director name this quarter's priority and the two numbers that would prove it worked? If they can only name the reports, the meeting explained the past.
A priority is easier to choose when direction already exists on one page. If ambitions live in a deck the client never opens, start with what a business plan is for advisory clients before you invent a quarterly objective in the room. Write the quarterly priorities in the client's words before anyone reaches for a template.
Why a longer KPI pack does not create focus
Adding utilisation, pipeline, and more traffic lights does not answer which number matters this quarter. A KPI shows how the business is. An objective and its key results show what you are changing, and how you will know. A healthy KPI can sit still while the priority stalls.
Renaming last year's goals fails for the same reason. A line with no baseline, no target, and no owner is a wish. Many clients already have ambitions from a planning day. They lack the quarterly cut: which ambition is live now, and which proof you will look at in 90 days.
Strategy, OKRs, and KPIs are three layers, not three labels for one dashboard. Read strategy vs OKRs vs KPIs for that model. How many objectives to set, and how to run the first weeks, are in how to set OKRs for a small business. This page is the definition, not the setup manual.
What are OKRs objectives and key results: the definition for the meeting
OKRs means objectives and key results. An objective without key results is a slogan. Key results without an objective are a metric list. Andy Grove developed the pairing at Intel, and John Doerr later introduced it at Google. Save that origin story for when a director asks.
When a director asks what are OKRs objectives and key results, use their accounts rather than a textbook company. Walk the table, then write one objective and two key results before the meeting ends.
| Objective | Key result | KPI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Question it answers | What should change this quarter? | How will we know it moved? | Is the business healthy on this measure? |
| Form | One short qualitative sentence | A number, from a baseline to a target, by a date | An ongoing metric, often with a threshold |
| How often it changes | Reset each quarter | Reset with the objective | Continues across quarters |
| Owner | One sponsor on the client side | One owner per result, on the client side | The function that produces the number |
| Services example | Restore profit and cash on work already sold | Gross margin from 38% to 42% by quarter end | Gross margin % reported every month |
A workshop can support the priority. It is not the priority. A key result needs a baseline, a target, a date, and an owner, so "improve margin" fails. A KPI continues whether or not it is this quarter's bet. Revenue can stay a KPI when the bet is margin and cash.
Worked example: a £3m UK services client
Take a professional services client turning over £3m, with about 22 people. Management accounts show gross margin of 38%, down from 44% two years ago, debtor days of 62, and cash covering about six weeks of payroll and overhead. "Grow revenue to £4m" is the wrong quarterly objective: it ignores the leak. One company objective is enough.
Priority (objective): Restore profit and cash on the work we already sell.
Proof 1 (key result): Lift gross margin from 38% to 42% by quarter end. Owner: the operations director. If the quarter is an even slice of the year, turnover in the quarter is £750,000. Four percentage points of that is £30,000 of gross profit in the quarter: 42% of £750,000 is £315,000, and 38% is £285,000. Do not present £30,000 as £120,000 of annual profit until the higher rate has held.
Proof 2 (key result): Cut debtor days from 62 to 45 by quarter end. Owner: the client's finance lead, not your practice. Using 365 days, £3m divided by 365 is about £8,220 a day. Seventeen days is about £140,000 of cash if that pattern holds (17 × £8,220). That is cash released from debtors, not extra profit. Show the working, because credit notes and a lumpy month will move it.
What stays a KPI: Still report revenue, gross margin, debtor days, and cash. Revenue is context, not a key result. If revenue falls while margin rises, name the trade-off. You own the baselines, the wording, and the review date. The client owns the result.
How to explain OKRs to clients without losing the structure
You explain OKRs to clients best when the latest management accounts are open, so the baseline is a figure they already accept. If the acronym sounds like a large-company people process, do not defend the word. Change the labels and keep the structure. A client who dislikes jargon will still pay for a priority with an owner.
Call the objective "this quarter's priority" and each key result "the proof". Still leave with one priority, two or three proofs, a baseline, a target, a date, and a named owner. Say: "We will not use the acronym if it gets in the way. We will still write one priority and the numbers that prove it, with your name on each number." Dropping the acronym is a courtesy. Dropping the owner or the baseline returns you to a wish list.
The practical test of what are OKRs objectives and key results is whether the client can repeat one priority and two proofs after you leave. Read this back before you close the notebook: "This quarter's priority is [objective]. We will know it is working if [measure] moves from [baseline] to [target] by [date]. [Name] owns that number. We will still report [KPI], and it is not the bet this quarter."
Common mistakes when accountants introduce OKRs
These mistakes appear when what are OKRs objectives and key results stays a slide definition and never reaches the review notes.
- Writing tasks as key results: "chase debtors" or "hold a pricing workshop" instead of a number that moves.
- Turning every KPI into a key result, so the quarter has twelve priorities and no focus.
- Leaving the accountant as the owner because the client will not pick a name.
- Setting an annual revenue goal and calling it a quarterly objective.
- Linking scores to pay in the first quarter, which teaches people to set targets they cannot miss.
- Copying a cascade built for several hundred people onto a firm of about twenty.
Put quarterly priorities next to the numbers you already produce
A clear definition changes the meeting. It changes the next month only if the priority, the proofs, and the owners are still visible beside the figures your practice already produces. Gross margin, debtor days, and cash will keep coming from the ledger. What usually disappears is the decision about which of those figures leadership agreed to move.
OKR planning is how that decision stays on the record: one set of quarterly priorities, key results with owners, and a review against the numbers rather than a pack rebuilt the night before. Elevale is the workspace your team reopens, so the list is not trapped in whoever ran the last call.
Baselines change by client. The structure does not. Accountants and financial advisers use the same pattern so follow-through has a place in the rhythm, not a fresh spreadsheet each quarter. Elevale does not replace the accounts. It keeps those quarterly priorities, and the owners on them, next to the numbers the practice already produces.
Frequently asked questions
What are OKRs? OKRs are objectives and key results: one qualitative priority for the quarter, and a few numeric proofs that it moved. Each proof has a baseline, a target, a date, and an owner.
What is the difference between an objective, a key result, and a KPI? An objective says what should change this quarter. A key result is the measured move from a baseline to a target by a date. A KPI is the ongoing health measure you report whether or not it is this quarter's priority.
Should we drop the acronym if the client dislikes OKRs? Yes. Drop the acronym if it gets in the way, and keep the structure. Call the objective this quarter's priority and call the key results the proof. Still name an owner, a baseline, a target, and a date.
How many OKRs should a £3m services client set? Start with one company objective and two or three key results. Add another objective only when the directors can recite the current set without notes.
Who should own the key results? Someone on the client side. Your practice owns the baselines from the accounts, the wording, and the review date. If your firm owns the result, it is an internal task, not the client's priority.
Next steps
This week, pick one services client whose last review closed on margin or cash, ideally with turnover in the £2m to £4m range. From the latest management accounts, draft one priority and two proofs on a single page. Read them to another manager. If the baseline, target, date, and owner are not all visible, rewrite them before the client sees them.
Use the setup guide when you are ready to run the quarter. Where this step sits beside reporting, reviews, and renewal is in the business advisory playbook for accountancy firms.
Apply to the Partner Programme when those priorities should stay in the client workspace between meetings, or read the Partner Programme page first.