What a morning dashboard should show you (and what it shouldn't)

The best owner dashboards fit on one screen and answer three questions. That's it.

Question 1: what does today look like?

Jobs booked. First one starts at 8am. Two are urgent. That's your day in a sentence — before you open your phone.

Question 2: what's overdue?

Invoices past 30 days. Missed calls from yesterday. Quotes waiting on client response for over a week. Three numbers. If any of them are red, that's your first hour.

Question 3: how did we do last week?

Revenue vs the average. Not vs budget — no one hits budget in trades. Just a rolling number so you know whether the boat's moving.

Frequently asked

What tool builds this?

Anything that reads from your existing stack. We've built dashboards in Retool, Notion, and custom on top of Xero + ServiceM8. Owner picks the shape; we handle the plumbing.

Do I need to look at it every day?

Yes, but for 60 seconds. The whole point is that it fits on one screen and answers three questions. If it takes longer, it's the wrong dashboard.