A live dashboard for your small business. See the wood for the trees.

What is a dashboard for a small business?

A dashboard is one screen showing the handful of figures that tell you how your business is doing. They're pulled automatically from the systems you already use. Instead of logging in to five places or waiting for the accountant, you open one page and see cash, money owed, work booked and enquiries, all up to date.

The last of those quotes is the real problem. If the numbers only live in your head, the business can't run without you. You've built a job, not a business, and a dashboard is one of the ways out.

Whatever the problem, my first step is the same: get the facts in one place. It's how I've solved problems for 20 years. Once the figures sit side by side, the real problem usually shows itself quickly, and a good dashboard puts them there every morning.

What should a KPI dashboard for a small business show?

Five to eight numbers you would act on, not fifty. For most small businesses that means cash in the bank, money owed to you, money you owe, work booked, profit by job or client, and enquiries turning into work. If you sell your time, add hours spent. Everything else can sit one click away.

Owners usually start with these:

• Cash in the bank. Today's balance, and where it's heading over the next few weeks.
• Money owed to you. Who owes what, and how late it is.
• Money you owe. Bills, wages and VAT coming up, so nothing is a surprise.
• Work booked. Jobs or projects in the diary, and quotes still waiting for an answer.
• Profit by job or client. What's left after materials, labour and time.
• Enquiries and conversion. How many came in, from where, and how many became paying work.
• Where the time goes. Hours spent against hours you can bill, if you sell your time.

Why so few? Because a screen of fifty charts is one more spreadsheet you don't open. If a number wouldn't change what you do on Monday, it doesn't belong on the front page.

What would a dashboard show for a business like mine?

It depends on how you make money. A plumber cares about jobs booked and quotes won, an accountant about work in progress and time recorded, and a shop about takings and stock. The table shows the numbers I'd usually start with for each type of business, and where they tend to come from.

Where does the data come from, and how is it connected?

From the systems you already use: your accounts, the bank feed, your job or CRM system, spreadsheets, your till or booking system and your enquiry forms. I connect each one in the most dependable way it offers. The dashboard then refreshes on a timetable, so nobody copies figures across by hand.

There are three usual routes. Some systems have a ready-made connector, and others offer an API: a door that lets other software read the data with your permission. Xero, for example, publishes APIs for businesses and developers. The rest can send a scheduled export to a folder the dashboard reads.

Don't assume every connection exists. Microsoft's own list of Power Query connectors doesn't include Xero or QuickBooks, so accounts data usually arrives by export, the API or a third-party connector. I check this before you spend anything.

What can't a dashboard do?

It can only show what your systems hold. If jobs aren't closed off, time isn't recorded or invoices sit in a drawer, the dashboard shows the gaps faithfully: rubbish in, rubbish out. It also can't make the decision for you. It shows you where to look, and you still decide what to do about it.

Often the first thing a dashboard shows is a gap in how the work gets recorded. That's useful in itself. Fixing it is usually a small change to a form or a habit, and the business automation side of my work can take the retyping out of it.

I also can't guarantee a dashboard will be 100% right. A software update, a renamed column or a missed entry can throw a figure out. That's why you check the numbers against your accounts before you rely on them, and why I build in simple cross-checks, such as totals that must match the accounts package.

How do you build a dashboard for my business?

In four steps. After a free call to hear what you need to know, I pull your systems together and find the few numbers that matter. I build the dashboard on software you own and test it against your accounts. Then I walk you and your team through it, and you check the figures before relying on them.

Not sure what you need to see yet? An AI readiness assessment maps where your week goes first, and the dashboard often follows from it.