Dashboards & KPIs
Sales are growing. Are margins, cash and overdue invoices keeping pace?
Keep a consistent executive view of performance and what needs attention.
An illustrative workflow, shaped around your systems, records and approvals.
A typical manual workflow
Your team prepares,
checks and produces.
Export from each system
Pull figures from accounting and any job, sales or operating systems.
Make the figures comparable
Match records and agree what counts as sales, margin or overdue debt.
Update the charts
Refresh the workbook or dashboard and check the latest numbers.
Answer the follow-up questions
Find the invoices, jobs or customers behind a movement.
With Octopi systems
Keep the key numbers in one place.
- Refreshes connected accounting and operating data on your agreed schedule, with the last update clearly shown.
- Shows measures relevant to your business, such as cash available, overdue invoices and profit by job, customer or service where the records support it.
- Lets you open the records behind a number and highlights changes, such as higher sales alongside a falling margin.
Find the issue. Put someone on it.
You or your team use the detail to decide which customer to call, which job to investigate or where pricing needs a closer look.
Inside the system
The tools, instructions
and checks behind it.
01Refresh connected dataRules + data
Bring accounting and relevant operating records into structured tables and display the latest successful refresh.
Scheduled data import · Structured tables · Quality checks
- Input
- Approved accounting and operating data sources.
- Output
- Dated tables with a clear refresh and exception status.
- Checks and human role
- Flag stale data and incomplete imports rather than silently displaying them.
02Apply consistent KPI definitionsRules + calculations
Apply agreed definitions for cash, overdue invoices and margin; only calculate job or customer profitability where source data supports it.
Metric definitions · Calculation engine
- Input
- Validated tables and agreed KPI logic.
- Output
- Consistent measures used across reports and dashboards.
- Checks and human role
- Reconcile key measures and control changes to definitions.
03Present insight with contextAI assistance + dashboard
Show trends and the records behind each measure, with questions such as why higher sales have not improved margin.
Executive dashboard · Claude or ChatGPT · KPI explanation instructions · Reusable instructions: Executive KPI interpretation
- Input
- Calculated metrics, trend data and approved business context.
- Output
- A refreshed dashboard with supporting-record links, source dates and questions about material movements.
- Checks and human role
- Show the data date. Distinguish unusual changes from proven causes.
Example instructions
Use the supplied KPI results and supporting records to identify what needs attention. Consider higher sales with lower margins, overdue invoices and cash movements. Name relevant jobs or customers only where supported and authorised. Cite the records and refresh date. Distinguish patterns from proven causes. Do not invent job profitability where cost allocation is unavailable or calculate new metrics in free text.
04Investigate and actHuman judgement
Use the supporting detail to assign a collection call, investigate a job or review pricing and costs.
Owner or finance leader · Source drill-through
- Input
- Current metrics, explanations and linked records.
- Output
- Prioritised actions and questions for further investigation.
- Checks and human role
- People validate commercial explanations and own subsequent decisions.
Illustrative workflows after setup. Your existing automation, systems and processes determine the work removed. People provide context, resolve exceptions and retain agreed approvals.
What could change for your business?
Spend less on finance.
Get more from it.
Tell us what is taking too much time, costing too much or leaving you without the information you need. Let's explore what the right systems could change.