Overview
The Business Performance Dashboard is a powerful tool that provides a comprehensive overview of your company's financial health. It presents key financial and operational metrics in an easy-to-understand format, allowing you to assess the overall performance of your business quickly. This report is available for Professional Plan and Xero Connected Fergus customers only.
What is included in the dashboard?
The dashboard includes important metrics such as gross profit, net profit, chargeable hours, and material margins. These metrics are essential for understanding the financial health of your business and can help you make informed decisions about its future.
In addition to these key metrics, the dashboard also highlights potential challenges or issues within your business that you may want to address. This can serve as a starting point for identifying and implementing steps to improve or optimize your business performance.
How It works
The Business Performance Dashboard consolidates data from Fergus and Xero, two powerful business management tools. To access the dashboard, you will need an active connection to Xero. This ensures that the data presented is accurate and up-to-date.
Now, let's take a closer look at each section of the Business Performance Dashboard and what it can tell you.
Last 12 Months
The Last 12 Months section of the dashboard displays the movements of your business metrics, such as Sales Revenue, Labour and Material Costs, Gross Profit, and Overheads. It also shows how these metrics affect your Net Profit. To learn more about each metric, simply click on the question mark icon to access additional information. You can also select to view the breakdown of this information for 3, 6 or 12 months.
Key Figures
The Key Figures section of the dashboard displays important figures in your business, such as charge-out Rate, Overheads, and Material Margins. These figures have a significant impact on the metrics shown in the Last 12 Months section, making them crucial to monitor and manage.
Historical Overview
The Historical Overview section allows you to compare the month-on-month financial performance of your business over the last 12 months. To help you better understand this data, we have included a quick video tutorial. Additionally, you can export the historical overview as a CSV file for a more detailed analysis.
Performance Simulator
One of the unique features of the Business Performance Dashboard is the Performance Simulator. This tool allows you to safely test how changes to your Chargeable Rate, Overheads, or Material Margins could impact your bottom line. Please note that this is a test environment and will not affect your actual profits. You can easily revert to your original figures by clicking on the "Revert to original key figures" button.
Please note: The Business Performance Dashboard uses figures from your Xero Profit & Loss report, along with your Fergus data. For the most accurate results, check these settings in ⚙ Settings > Integration Centre > Xero:
Sales account codes: make sure you have separate account codes set for labour and materials sales
Account settings → Purchase Invoices: the Xero account you use for supplier invoices, used for your materials cost
Account settings → Tradesperson Wages: the Xero account you use for wages, used for your labour cost
The Assign Accounts toggles in Xero settings don't affect this dashboard. They're only used for the Business Overview Report.
Checking your account settings
If you're unsure which Xero accounts to use for these settings, we recommend checking with your accountant.
How often does the Business Performance Dashboard update?
The data is updated once a month, on the first day.
What do the different metrics mean?
Here you'll find a definition of the different metrics visible on the report.
Sales Revenue
This is the amount the company made from labour and material sales. This excludes any discounts, refunds or credit notes.Cost of Labour and Materials
This is the direct cost associated with materials purchased and the labour cost of the workers performing the work. It excludes distribution costs or any other indirect costs.Gross Profit
This is the profit amount the company makes after deducting the costs associated with labour and materials from the Sales Revenue.
Overheads
Are ongoing business expenses not including or related to direct material or direct labour. A company pays overhead on an ongoing basis, regardless of how much or how little the company is selling. Examples include rent, utilities, accounting fees, office admin wages, security, etc.Net profit
This is the amount the company makes at the end of a period after operating expenses and all other costs including taxes, interest and depreciation have been deducted from total revenue. If the amount is negative, it means the company is incurring a net loss. This is an important measure of how profitable the company is.Chargeable rate percentage %
This is the percentage of paid hours that are chargeable to the client based on the time entered on jobs; excluding uncharged time.Margin on Materials percentage %
This is the Margin on Materials the (average margin calculated on all materials purchased and then sold within the same period) divided by revenue. This figure excludes labour, overheads, or any costs other than direct materials.Overheads %.
This is the percentage representation of overheads compared to sales revenue for the same period.
Concept definitions:
Performance Report
This tab shows the actual performance of the business based on the data in Fergus and Xero, so it's important that your Xero account settings are set up correctly.Performance Simulator
This tab allows business owners to safely change the values of the 3 key metrics: Chargeable Rate, Overheads % and Margin on Materials %. These scenarios allow business owners to identify how the changes may impact the performance of the business.Historical Overview displays the performance trend over the last 12 months. This provides insights into the performance on a monthly basis.
Key Metrics are calculated from the data imported from Xero and existing Fergus computations.
Conclusion
The Business Performance Dashboard is an essential tool for any business owner who wants to monitor their company's financial performance. By providing key metrics and highlighting potential issues, it can help you make informed decisions and take steps to improve and optimize your business.