Custom reporting dashboards for trades and service businesses.
A custom reporting dashboard that brings your ad accounts, CRM, job app, rosters and Xero onto one screen. For tradies, clinics, cleaning companies, consultancies and agencies across Australia who want to see what each booked job cost to win, and what is working this week rather than at month end.
A fixed written quote before we start. Pay upfront or in stages. Ongoing management from go-live.
One screen for the numbers that run the business.
Every tool you use has a reports tab. The trouble is that each one only sees its own slice: the ad platform sees clicks, the CRM sees enquiries, the job app sees jobs, and Xero sees invoices. The questions that matter to an owner sit across all of them.
A custom reporting dashboard joins those sources together and answers those questions directly. Which campaigns bring paid work? Which services make money? Which crew, clinic or contract needs attention this week? The numbers update on their own, using definitions you agreed, so the Monday meeting starts from the same page.
Dashboards are one of the tools we build under custom software development. As a Melbourne studio that also runs Google Ads and SEO, measurement is the part of the work we know best.
Book a free strategy callSigns your reporting has outgrown spreadsheets and exports
Usually an owner-run business spending real money on advertising and staff, with its numbers spread across four or five tools.
Month-end takes a day of exports
Someone downloads reports from the ad accounts, the CRM, the job app and Xero, pastes them into a spreadsheet and hopes the formulas still work.
Every tool tells a different story
Google Ads counts one number of leads, the CRM another, and the office a third. Nobody is sure which one to believe, so decisions wait.
You can see clicks, not paid work
The ad platforms report cost per lead. What you need to know is which campaigns bring jobs that get booked, completed and paid.
Problems show up too late
A quiet fortnight of enquiries, a crew running under capacity or a contract going over budget only becomes obvious when the month is already gone.
What a custom dashboard does differently
Six things a dashboard built for one business can do that a single tool's reports cannot.
What goes on a reporting dashboard
Custom dashboard development starts with the decisions you make each week. Most dashboards use some of these views, and more are added as new questions come up.
Looker Studio, Power BI or a custom dashboard?
Reporting tools are good and some are free. Here is when one of them is enough, and when a dashboard built around your business fits better.
Fits when the data is already in one place
Looker Studio works well over Google Ads and GA4, Power BI suits businesses with someone who enjoys building reports, and Databox and the built-in reports in your job app cover a lot of everyday needs.
The trade-off comes when the answer needs several systems matched record by record, such as an ad click to a call to a quote to an invoice. Connectors move data across, but someone still has to make it agree.
Fits how you measure the business
A custom build suits businesses whose key numbers cross systems, such as cost per booked job, margin per contract or utilisation per crew, and who want each person to see a view they can act on.
The matching and the definitions are built in, alerts arrive without anyone checking, and new measures are added as part of ongoing management.
There is also a middle path. We can build the part that joins and cleans your data, then show it in Looker Studio or Power BI if your team already likes working there.
What a dashboard looks like in different businesses
Illustrative examples to show how the same idea fits different work. They are not past client projects.
Where the numbers come from
A dashboard reads from the systems you already use. It never replaces your accounting or payroll, and it is only as accurate as the tracking behind it, which is why we check that first.
Agreeing the numbers first
Most reporting arguments are really arguments about definitions. Is a repeat caller a new lead? Is a job booked when the quote is accepted or when it is scheduled? Does revenue mean invoiced or paid? We settle these with you before anything is built, and write them down.
- A written definition for every number on the screen
- Tracking checked, and fixed where leads are not being recorded
- Past months loaded so trends start on day one
- Figures checked against your own records before go-live
If the tracking needs work first, our Google and tracking setup covers it, so the dashboard reports on numbers you can trust.
How a dashboard project is priced and run
A dashboard project runs the same way as every custom software build: discovery, a written scope with a fixed quote, building in stages you check against real figures, then go-live and ongoing management.
Every dashboard is different, so there is no price list. You see both figures, in writing, for an agreed scope, before we start.
A one-off build fee
Fixed in your quote after discovery. Pay it upfront, or in stages tied to milestones.
Ongoing management
Every build comes with it: hosting, monitoring, updates, fixes and small improvements, billed monthly from the day your dashboard goes live. When an ad platform or job app changes how it shares data, keeping the dashboard working is part of looking after it.
Who owns the dashboard, and who owns the data
We agree code ownership per project, in writing, before the build starts. There are two options.
We keep the code, you hold a licence
Scalepoint owns the code and you get a licence to use the dashboard in your business. You can buy the code out later if your plans change.
You own the code once it is paid for
Ownership of the code passes to you when the build fee is paid in full.
Your data is always yours, whichever option you choose. Your ad accounts, client records and financial figures belong to your business, and you can export them at any time.
Other ways we can help
Common questions about custom dashboards
What is a custom reporting dashboard?+
A single screen, built for one business, that pulls numbers automatically from its ad accounts, CRM, job app, rostering and accounting software and shows them using that business's own definitions. Custom dashboard development means the measures, views and alerts follow how you run the business, rather than what one tool can report on.
Can we just use Looker Studio or Power BI?+
Often, yes. If most of your data sits in Google products, a free Looker Studio board is a good start, and Power BI suits businesses with an analyst who wants to build their own reports. A custom dashboard suits you when the numbers you care about need data from several systems matched together, such as cost per booked job.
How up to date is the data?+
It depends on each source. Some systems can be read every few minutes, others once an hour or once a day. We agree the refresh for each source during scoping, so you know exactly how current each number is.
What does cost per booked job mean?+
Advertising spend divided by the number of enquiries that became booked jobs, rather than by every click or form fill. It shows which campaigns bring work that actually happens, which is the number that matters to a trade or service business.
How much does a custom dashboard cost?+
It depends on how many sources it joins and what it has to show, so there is no price list. After a discovery session you get a fixed build fee and the monthly management fee in writing, for an agreed scope, before any work starts.
Who owns the dashboard and the data behind it?+
Your data is always yours, and you can export it at any time. Code ownership is agreed in writing before the build: by default we keep the code and you hold a licence to use it, with the option to buy it out, or the code becomes yours once the build fee is paid in full.
Show us the numbers you wish you had
Walk us through how you put your figures together today and the questions they cannot answer. We will show you what a dashboard built around them would look like.