Systems we build and run
Bespoke management reporting systems
The numbers the person who owns the business needs, coming off the work as it happens rather than out of somebody's evenings, and every figure open to being checked.
What it is, and where it fits
Where this kind of system fits
- Builders, contractors and trades
- Plant, tool and equipment hire
- Manufacturing and fabrication
- Transport, haulage and logistics
- Legal, accountancy and professional services
Reporting worth having comes off live records. Once the jobs, hours and stock are in a system, the weekly figures are a page rather than a project, and any number can be opened up to show the records underneath it.
It suits whoever signs for the business and wants to see how the month is going while it is still going.
A weekly page off a system we already run is days. Group reporting across depots, with figures pulled from accounts and payroll first, is a bigger build done the same way.
What it usually grew out of
It usually grows out of a workbook rebuilt every month.
Somebody exports two or three systems, pastes them into a spreadsheet that has been extended for years, and spends an evening making it agree. It works, and it takes an evening, so the figures arrive once the month is over.
It depends on the one person who understands the workbook. Moving the same arithmetic into the system that holds the work makes it repeatable, current, and checkable by somebody else.
What it does
Off the work, not rebuilt
Figures calculated from the records as they're created, so the report is current when you open it rather than as at last Friday.
Job profitability that holds
What a job earned against what it cost in labour, materials and plant, once those are booked against it rather than estimated.
The numbers you run on
Average days on site, jobs per van, work in progress, which customer is actually making you money. Yours rather than a standard set.
Open any figure
Every total opens onto the records behind it, so a number that looks wrong can be checked instead of argued about.
Arriving without being asked
A page in your inbox on Monday morning, with the exceptions flagged rather than left for you to notice.
One version of a figure
The same definition of a finished job for everybody, so two reports can't tell two stories and nobody has to arbitrate.
An AI feature can add a plain-English summary of the week to the figures, and a forecast of the month ahead from the work already booked in. The numbers underneath stay the ones you can open and check. More on AI and automation.
Usually built alongside job and works trackers, systems that join up what you already run or multi-site and multi-depot operations. The rest are on the services page.
How it gets built, and how it gets run
| Fixed price | Scope, price and dates in writing before anything starts, with what isn't included written as plainly as what is. It doesn't move because the job turned out harder than we thought. |
|---|---|
| Timescale | Reporting off a system we already run for you is days rather than weeks. Pulling the figures in from elsewhere first is a longer job. |
| Onboarding and training | We sit with whoever builds the monthly workbook now, agree what each figure means, and check the first month against theirs before anybody relies on it. |
| Hosted in the UK | UK infrastructure, backed up nightly to somewhere that isn't the machine running it, kept thirty days, and checked every few minutes that it's up and answering. |
| Changes | A new figure, a different cut of it, another report on a schedule. What that covers is agreed at the start, so nobody works it out on the day. |
Ask about our free Business Systems Assessment
An hour with whoever runs the day to day. Clear recommendations to act on.
We look at how the work actually runs and what it runs on, then send you a list of what we would change, what each change would do for the business, and what it would take. In person or online, whichever suits you. Nothing to pay, nothing to sign.
- One hour
- In person or online
- Recommendations we talk you through
Honest answers
- Our accounts package already has reports.
- And they're the right place for the money. What they can't see is the work: hours not yet invoiced, jobs sat waiting, kit not earning. Both together is what you want, which is usually an integration question.
- Who decides what the numbers are?
- You do, and it's the most valuable hour of the whole job. We ask what you check on a Monday, and what you'd check if it were easy, and build that.
- Can we still get it in a spreadsheet?
- Yes, and that isn't a defeat. Plenty of good analysis happens in a spreadsheet. The difference is that the export is one click off live data rather than an evening of assembly.
Talk to us
Tell us what you check every Monday, and what you'd check as well if it took a second. That's usually enough for us to say whether we can help.
Ring, 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and Saturday mornings, or use the form below. Pick what you'd like to keep track of, add a line if you want to, and leave a name and a way to reach you.