What changes when management sees today’s figures instead of last month’s.
A report prepared by hand describes the past. By the time it reaches the meeting the figures are days or weeks old, and the discussion is about what happened rather than what to do.
In an ERP system every transaction is recorded once, so reports are drawn from live data: today’s sales, current stock, dues and their ages, and the cost of each project.
What to put on a dashboard
- Sales by product, branch and salesperson.
- Receivables and payables by age.
- Stock value and items below their reorder level.
- Budget against actual for each cost centre.
Keep it short: a dashboard is useful when each figure on it leads to a decision.