An owner dashboard for trades businesses, built from the systems you already use
To see your whole trades business on one screen, pull the numbers each night from the systems that already hold them, like QuickBooks, your CRM or estimating tool, and your time clock, into one dashboard nobody has to build by hand. Z&G Partners builds and runs these dashboards for trades companies doing $3M to $15M a year. At a painting company in Cape Cod, the owner and GM each have one: revenue against goal per crew leader, gross profit per hour, productivity, and billed against recorded revenue.
The weekly-meeting problem
The numbers live in too many spots. Before the weekly meeting, someone exports reports, pastes them into Excel and builds the slides. One office manager put the job at four hours, “including the exporting, the report to present it at the meeting.”
And the answer still comes late. One general manager told us: “I can't look at it right now and say, we're six days in.” Another said: “I had to go to three separate softwares just to get information.”
What a late number costs
A problem you cannot see is a problem you cannot fix. At one company, a crew leader had been handed 13 people and could really manage six. That used to surface mid-season, by accident. A job that is losing money keeps losing money until someone notices, and crews give things away on jobs that are already over budget.
What goes on the screen
- Jobs: every job's profit, and hours against the estimate while the job is still running.
- Crews: revenue against goal per crew leader, gross profit per hour, and productivity.
- Money: billed against recorded revenue, so nothing done goes unbilled.
- Sales: open quotes and won work, if your estimating tool or CRM holds them.
How we build it
We connect the systems that hold each number and rebuild the dashboard every night. Nobody exports a report or pastes a spreadsheet. One job number ties everything together. Anything that does not match is flagged to a named person, never guessed. The dashboard lives where your team already works, such as Salesforce, Smartsheet or a shared sheet.
Proof
- At a painting company in Cape Cod, the owner and GM each have a dashboard: revenue against goal per crew leader, gross profit per hour, productivity, and billed against recorded revenue. 553 job cost sheets feed it, updated nightly.
- At a garage door company in Bend, Oregon, 2,030 jobs are costed from Salesforce, Paychex and QuickBooks, with reports and a dashboard inside Salesforce, refreshed nightly.
- Today each live dashboard sits on one company's own systems. One screen that adds sales, cash and scheduling on top is how we would build it for you, and we scope it on the call.
What it costs and how long it takes
A flat fee to build it, then a monthly fee to run it. We quote both on a free 30-minute call once we know your tools. No hourly bills. No surprise invoices.
Your dashboard is live in 30 days or your money back.* The 30 days start the day we have working access to every system involved. It only takes 3 to 5 hours of your team's time and our team will do the rest.
*Terms in writing before we start.
Where to go next
Most dashboards start with job costing, because that is the number owners trust least. See how real-time job costing works.
Questions owners ask
Do I need Power BI or new software?
No. We build on the tools you already run and put the dashboard where your team already works.
How current are the numbers?
They rebuild every night, so the morning view shows yesterday's work.
Can crew leaders see their own numbers?
If you want them to. Many owners start with the owner and GM view and add crew leaders later.
What if our data is messy?
The dashboard flags what does not match, so a named person can fix it at the source. If a piece is missing, like hours by job, we set it up with you during the build.
Book a free 30-minute callWe take on 3 new trades companies per month.