Analytics and reporting
Business reporting
Do you need a reporting dashboard, or just better use of the reports you already have?
Six short steps. No email or account.
- Who needs it
- Owners past the point where they can hold the numbers in their head.
- When it matters
- Once decisions are being made on instinct and turning out wrong.
- Compare first
- Connectors you need
- Matters most when
- growing, mature
Is this the right tool for you?
Your numbers live in several places: accounting, job or sales software, the bank, marketing tools. Pulling them together by hand takes time, so it happens rarely, and decisions get made on gut feel or last quarter's figures. A dashboard is only worth having if it shows the few numbers you act on, and someone looks at it.
Signs you need it now
- You rebuild the same spreadsheet by hand every month from several systems.
- You find out about a bad month after it is over.
- Partners or managers each quote different figures for the same thing.
- You have to log into three tools to answer a simple question about how the business is doing.
When another area fits better
- The numbers you need are cash in and out and what is coming due. Read the cash flow and budgeting guide
- Your books are behind or unreliable; a dashboard will only display bad numbers. Read the bookkeeping help guide
Recognise two or more of these? Sort out business reporting next.
Tell us how your business runs and get a plan that puts business reporting in order with everything else: what to set up first, your must-haves and what to compare.
What matters at your size
Working alone
Usually not needed. The reports inside your accounting and job software, reviewed at a set time each month, do the job.
A small team
Worth it once you rely on three or more systems. Pick a short list of numbers, such as revenue, jobs booked, outstanding invoices and cash, and pull them onto one page.
Several teams or locations
Dashboards by location, team or service line, with agreed definitions of each figure, access controls, and someone who owns keeping the data connections working.
How the way you work changes the choice
- Trades and field crews
- The useful numbers are jobs booked, revenue per job, callbacks and crew utilization. Your job management software's own reports often cover most of it.
- Professional services
- Billable hours, utilization, work in progress and unbilled time. These usually combine time tracking with accounting, so check that both can feed the dashboard.
- Retail and shops
- Sales by day and product, margin, stock levels and staffing against sales. Point-of-sale reports are the starting point; a dashboard adds value when you combine several stores or channels.
What to compare
Connectors you need
Value depends entirely on whether it reads your actual systems.
Setup effort
Dashboards need configuring. Budget the hours, or buy templates.
Cost and setup effort
- Costs depend on the number of users, data connections and how often data refreshes. A spreadsheet fed by exports is a legitimate first step.
- Most of the effort is agreeing what each number means and connecting the sources cleanly. Expect to revisit it when any underlying system changes.
- Check that ready-made connections exist for the specific tools you use; building custom ones usually needs outside help.
Trade-offs to weigh
- Built-in reports or a separate dashboard
- Reports inside each tool cost nothing extra and are accurate, but leave you jumping between systems. A combined dashboard gives one view but adds a layer that can break.
- Ready-made or custom
- Pre-built dashboards for your accounting or job software are quick but fixed. Custom ones fit your business but need someone to build and maintain them.
- Many metrics or few
- Every extra chart dilutes attention. Start with the numbers that would change a decision this month.
When to sort it out
Once decisions are being made on instinct and turning out wrong.
Your next step
Answer six short questions about how your business runs. You get an operating plan: where business reporting fits among your priorities, the must-haves to hold every option to, and what to compare when you choose.
Often decided alongside
Other parts of analytics and reporting.