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The dashboards everyone talks about but no one seems to have? We built one, made it useful, and got it to update itself before breakfast and after close. This week we share the messy middle: the dead-end Power BI attempt, the admin pain of manual spreadsheets, and the moment an AI builder helped us ship a working operational dashboard without writing code from scratch.

We walk through the decisions that mattered: why we capped our dashboard at ten tiles, how we picked metrics that trigger action, and what changed when the team could see a simple graph beating a target line. You’ll hear how we pull data from our practice management system and a receipt capture tool with client health analytics, why we ignore timesheets yet still track performance by department, and how twice-daily syncs offer clarity without micromanagement. We also open up about the ROI mindset that pushed us forward—spend a focused half week now to reclaim hours forever—and the surprising ways small, visible numbers nudge behaviour.

If you run a small business or a trade, there’s a blueprint here. We sketch practical dashboards for plumbers and other SMEs—jobs booked, inquiries, money owed, cash collected—and explain when to bring in finance tools like Fathom for profit and cash snapshots. We’re candid about AI’s limits and strengths, showing how low-code tools can turn a persistent bottleneck into a clean workflow. Along the way, we share a bonus win: a transparent bookkeeping pricer built with the same approach to remove a recurring pricing headache.

Ready to swap KPI noise for daily clarity? Press play, steal the structure, and start with one metric that changes behaviour. If this helped, follow the show, leave a quick review, and share the episode with a founder who keeps saying “I’ll do the spreadsheet later.”

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