Harbour Coffee Roasters

Revenue trend slide with twelve months on one line chart

A revenue trend slide is read for its shape before anyone reads a single value, so the job is to make the shape true and then label the one month that breaks it. This one covers a year of wholesale and retail revenue at Harbour Coffee Roasters, a fictional roastery, on two lines that never cross.

Create a presentation with OneCraftOne 1920 × 1080 slide on the Metrics: Multi-Series Line Trend layout

Revenue Held Through Winter

Wholesale and retail revenue by month. The June dip is the fortnight the roastery moved sites.

Wholesale

Retail

The finished slide as it renders, built on the Metrics: Multi-Series Line Trend layout.

What is on the slide

Headline: Revenue Held Through Winter, with the framing line naming the June dip as the fortnight the roastery moved sites.
Wholesale line: Twelve monthly points from $48k in January to $71k in December, dipping to $54k in June.
Retail line: Twelve monthly points from $22k in January to $39k in December, dipping to $25k in June.
Axes and legend: Months across the bottom, thousands of dollars up the side, a two item legend under the plot.

When this is the right slide

A line chart earns the slide when the reader needs to see a direction over time, and when the gap between two series is part of the story rather than a second chart.

What to swap it for

Metrics: Line Chart Growth Trajectory. Swap to the single series growth layout when only one line exists, because a legend and a colour key are wasted on a chart with nothing to compare.

What this slide shows

The canvas holds a headline, a single framing sentence and a full width line chart with a legend underneath. The headline reads Revenue Held Through Winter. The framing sentence reads that the chart is wholesale and retail revenue by month and that the June dip is the fortnight the roastery moved sites. The chart plots twelve categories, January to December, with a vertical axis in thousands of dollars and a horizontal grid that sits behind the lines rather than over them. Wholesale runs 48, 51, 55, 57, 60, 54, 58, 61, 63, 66, 69 and 71. Retail runs 22, 24, 26, 27, 29, 25, 28, 30, 32, 34, 37 and 39. Each point is marked with a small dot so a reader can count months without guessing, and the two series take the theme's own colours rather than a red and green pair that would read as good and bad. The legend names both lines under the plot, and the page number sits in the footer band. There is no data table, no annotation layer and no second chart.

Who this slide is for and when to use it

This is a slide for the meeting where the year is being reviewed rather than forecast. Owners, boards and lenders all read a revenue line the same way: they look for the slope, then for anything that interrupts it, then for the end point. Twelve points is the right density for that, because a reader can see seasonality without needing a rolling average. The slide is weaker in two situations. If the audience needs to compare four or more segments, the lines start to overlap and a small multiple or a bar chart is easier to read. If the audience needs to argue about a single month, that month deserves its own slide with the underlying numbers, since a line chart is deliberately bad at showing an exact value.

How to adapt it

First, change the time bucket rather than the chart when the story is longer. Four years of quarterly points is still a clean line, and sixty months is not, so aggregate to quarters and keep the same layout. Second, switch to one series when the second one is not part of the argument. A single line with the same framing sentence reads faster, and the growth layout is built for exactly that. Third, keep the axis starting at zero for revenue. Cutting the axis makes a nine percent year look like a doubling, and an audience that spots it stops trusting every other chart in the deck. If you need to show a small movement on a large base, say so in the framing line and put the percentage change in words instead of zooming the axis. The same chart supports area, bar and stacked column, so a series that is really a composition can change shape without leaving the slide.

What makes this slide work

The dip is explained once, in words

June falls on both lines, from $60k to $54k on wholesale and $29k to $25k on retail. The framing line under the headline says the fortnight the roastery moved sites, so the presenter never has to defend the shape mid sentence. Putting that explanation on the chart as a callout would have added a third visual layer to a chart that is already carrying two.

Two series, not five

Wholesale and retail are the two halves of the business, so the chart compares the only split that changes a decision. The lines stay apart for the whole year, which means the reader never has to trace a crossing point. A third and fourth line would have turned a shape into a knot, and the layout accepts up to four.

The headline states the finding, not the subject

Revenue Held Through Winter is a claim the chart supports, while a title like Monthly Revenue would only have named the axes. The reader then checks the picture against the claim, which is the fastest way to be believed. It also tells the presenter what the slide is for, so the talk track is the evidence rather than a walk through the months.

Questions people ask

How many points should a revenue trend slide plot?

Six to twelve reads well on one line chart, and this slide uses twelve. Fewer than six and a bar chart usually communicates the same thing more precisely. More than twelve and the labels collide, so aggregate to quarters or years. The rule is that a reader should be able to find any single month without counting gridlines twice.

When is a line better than bars for revenue?

Use a line when the story is direction over time and the intervals are even. Bars are better when each period is a separate result to be compared, such as four regions in one quarter. This slide plots months in order, so the slope carries the message and the dip is visible as a shape rather than as one shorter bar.

Should a dip be labelled on the chart?

Explain it in the framing sentence first. A chart annotation adds a third layer to a plot that already carries two lines and a legend, and it usually repeats what the presenter is about to say. Here one sentence names the site move, which covers both series at once and leaves the plot clean for the room to look at.

Can this slide show revenue against target?

It can, as a third line, but the layout accepts up to four series and each one costs clarity. A target is usually better as a horizontal reference or as a second slide, because a reader who sees three lines will spend their attention deciding which is which rather than reading the trend that the slide was built for.

Does the y axis have to start at zero?

For revenue, yes. A truncated axis exaggerates growth and is the single easiest thing for a sceptical reader to catch. If the movement is genuinely small against a large base, keep the zero baseline and put the percentage change into the framing sentence, where it can be stated precisely rather than implied by a stretched picture.

What if the two lines cross?

A crossing is usually the point of the slide, so label it in the framing sentence and keep the chart. What does not work is three or four series crossing repeatedly, because the reader loses which line is which between crossings. In that case split the chart into two slides, or move to small multiples with one line each.

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Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked 20 September 2026.