Build & Systems · Consulting
Operations Dashboards & Reporting: One Honest View of the Business
One page, every number defined once, that nobody in the meeting can argue with.
The problem
What this usually looks like
Finance, sales and operations each arrive at the meeting with their own numbers, and the first twenty minutes go to deciding whose are right. Revenue comes from accounting, pipeline from the CRM, freight cost from a spreadsheet, on-time delivery from a report nobody has re-run since spring. Margin gets calculated three different ways depending on who is asking. So decisions get made on the loudest opinion in the room, and the reporting that was supposed to settle the argument becomes one more thing to maintain.
How I approach it
I define each metric once, in writing, including the formula, which system it comes from and what it excludes. Then I pull the numbers out of the systems you already have, ERP, CRM, TMS, dispatch, payroll, accounting, spreadsheets, and reconcile where they disagree before anything gets displayed. The dashboard itself stays deliberately small: the handful of numbers that change a decision, on one page. Then I run the weekly review off it until looking at it is a habit instead of a project.
Scope
What I actually do
Agree the metric set with the people who will be held to it, almost always fewer numbers than anyone expects.
Write each metric definition once: the formula, the source system, the exclusions and the person who owns it.
Reconcile the systems that disagree, and decide which one is authoritative for which number and why.
Automate the data pull so the dashboard updates itself instead of costing somebody a day every week.
Build the revenue view: revenue, gross margin, pipeline coverage, close rate and average deal size.
Build the operations view: freight cost per unit, on-time delivery, deadhead and empty miles, and technician or rep utilization.
Set targets and thresholds so a number that is off looks obviously off at a glance.
Run the weekly operating review off the dashboard, then hand the meeting over once it holds without me.
Deliverables
What you get
- Written metric definitions with formula, source system and owner
- Reconciliation of the conflicting numbers between systems
- One-page operations and revenue dashboard
- Automated data pipeline from your existing systems
- Weekly review agenda with the standing questions
- Documentation so the reporting survives a staff change
Outcomes
What changes
- Meetings start from the number instead of arguing about it
- Problems surface in the week they happen, not at month end
- Reporting stops consuming a person's day every week
- Cost per unit and utilization become visible enough to manage
- One version of the numbers across finance, sales and operations
Engagement
How we work together
Dashboard build project including the metric definitions
Reporting audit for companies whose systems disagree
Ongoing reporting and analysis retainer
Weekly operating review facilitation
Questions
Straight answers
We already have reports. Why would we need a dashboard?
Reports tell you what happened, and most companies have plenty of them. The problem is usually that three reports answer the same question differently and none of them get looked at on a schedule. The work here is defining each number once and building the weekly habit of reviewing it, not adding another report to the pile.
Our systems do not talk to each other. Is that a blocker?
No, it is the normal starting condition. ERP, CRM, dispatch and accounting almost never agree out of the box. Reconciling them is a large part of the engagement, and it is usually the part that surfaces the real operational problems.
What do you build it in?
Whatever you already own, wherever possible. The reporting layer in your ERP or CRM, a spreadsheet pipeline, or a dedicated BI tool if the data volume justifies one. Adding a new platform is the last resort, because a dashboard that depends on a licence renewal tends not to outlive it.
How small does a company have to be for this not to be worth it?
If you keep decision-making numbers in more than one system, it is worth doing. Owner-operators often get the most out of it, because the owner is the one currently rebuilding the same spreadsheet every Monday morning.
Related
Services that usually go with this
Sales Management Consulting
For owners and executives whose sales team is busy but not closing, and whose forecast is fiction.
Dispatch & Fleet Operations
Dispatch is a contact sport. I have run the board, not just audited it.
CRM Implementation & Revenue Operations
The platform matters far less than the adoption plan; a perfectly configured CRM nobody updates is an expensive spreadsheet.
Hiring instead of contracting? See the full-time roles, or the ATS-formatted resume.
Contact
Tell me what you are hiring for
- Call: +1 519 278 5085
- Email: tim@timarmstrong.ca
- Based: London & Southwestern Ontario, Ontario, America/Toronto (Eastern Time)
- Availability: Available nationally across Canada, on-site, hybrid or remote
- Serving: London · Stratford · Woodstock · Kitchener: Waterloo · Cambridge · Guelph · Brantford · Sarnia · Chatham-Kent · Windsor · Toronto · Mississauga and Canada-wide