In my last piece, I provided a brief overview of the Dashboard feature in RepairDesk 2.0. A few words on the design mechanics of the new outing – and a descriptor on how it allows for detailed analytics tracking with 28 lenses (called ‘Charts’).
These widgets, of course, can be used individually to measure performance against a single metric.
Coupling them with others in a logical assembly, however, can render a more complete story. Important insights that can inform your repair shop’s going strategy. Or even provoke timely revisions in daily operations, so as to check any loss factors from ensuing.
Ode to the Clarity that Data Brings
In today’s world, marked by rising unpredictability, nothing beats the certainty that data brings. But a single stream of figures only ever provides a glimpse of a studied reality. Anyone who’s ever worked with data intimately knows this.
To get a clearer picture, other intuitively connecting data sets are needed.
Here, I’ll state exactly how this can be achieved through the Dashboard outing.
Further, we’ll explore several widget sequences that will help you to accurately size various aspects of your business workflow. Real-time revelations that will embolden you to take a confident next step to resolve any threats to productivity.
Suit your cup?
An Important Tip to Get You Started on the Right Footing:
Take a few seconds to sign up for your RepairDesk 2.0 subscription – and configure/gain a hands-on understanding of your Dashboard screen as you read.
Get self-learning…instantly analyzing! 👇
A Listing of the ‘Charts’ in Question 📊 🍩 📈 📋 ⚖
The widget options currently available on the Dashboard interface are as follows.
I’ve categorized the chart names in accordance with their default graphical orientation, as they’re given in the utility – along with one-liner explanations of what each is for (the snap interpretations they offer).
Chart views can be filtered in line with the following default timeframes (along with a custom time setting): TODAY, YESTERDAY, 7 DAYS, 15 DAYS, 30 DAYS, and ALL TIME.
Graphic Type: Bar Chart 📊
1. Revenue By Item Type (Know Your Hot Sellers)
Indicates the revenue levels fetched by each of your offered product items and services. Shows which materials and services are hot-sellers, and which are less so; allowing you to make instant inventory/vendor ordering decisions.
Typical Metrics/Analyzed Categories: Products, Service Items, Repair Parts, Buybacks, Special Ordered Items
2. Employee Revenue By Item Type (Check Employee Performance)
Indicates which of your employees boast a certain fondness/specialization for selling particular products or services. This information can allow you to make worker-product pairing decisions – so individual offering sales are optimized.
From a diagnostic standpoint, this chart can also allow you to locate any worker sales patterns that might indicate a conflict of interest (when an employee may be secretly working with a product manufacturer, for instance; prioritizing their sales for discreet commissions). Such occurrences can obviously contribute to business losses when they continue unchecked.
Typical Metrics: Products, Services, Repair Parts, Buybacks, Special Ordered Items
3. Shop Visitors By Hours (Gauge your Busiest Shift Times)
Shown by the average number of customers who generate a ticket or make a product/service purchase on particular shift hours. This information allows you to size up your busiest business hours and schedule worker shifts/numbers accordingly.
4. Shop Visitors By Days (Identify your Busiest Weekdays)
Shows the average number of customers initiating tickets or making product/service purchases on individual days of the working week. This information provides the same employee scheduling benefit as above – though with a broader scope.
Graphic Type: Donut Chart 🍩
5. Expenses (Zoom In on Business Costs)
Shows the costs incurred in operating/maintaining the business cycle – providing insights into your highest/lowest expenditure by business area.
Typical Metrics: Sales & Commission, Inventory Loss, and Payroll
6. Items Sold (Size Up Your Most vs. Least Sales Prospects)
Shows how your sales fare by item type – indicating which items/sales offerings correlate with the highest customer demand and which perform poorly. This information can help you make informed budget/inventory allocation decisions.
Typical Metrics: Product, Repair Part, Buyback, Special Orders
7. Marketing (Narrow-In on your Digital Traffic Pullers)
Indicates which digital marketing channels fetch the highest traffic, leads, and conversions for your business. Armed with this information, you can invest more labor and adspend for improving/optimizing the performance of particular avenues.
Typical Metrics: Google Ads, Facebook, Referrals, Bing
8. Payment Methods (Learn your Customers’ Preferred Payment Channels)
Shows which payment channels are preferred by customers – and which fall short on compliance (allowing you to prioritize methods).
Typical Metrics: Cash, Bank, Allied Bank, Credit Card
Graphic Type: Stacked Line 📈
9. Total Revenue (See How Your Business Revenue is Faring)
Indicates how your business’s revenue profile is faring – and whether you’re in for a profit or loss in the ensuing period.
10. Gross Profit (Check your Broad Profit Situation)
See how your business profits are accruing following manufacturing and sales cost subtractions.
11. Net Profit (Total your Actual, ‘Take Home’, Earning)
Probably the most important analytics metric and a further refinement of the above. Your net profits equal your undisputed, take away, currency. Self-sustaining businesses allocate a portion of this earning for new business cycle reinvestments.
Graphic Type: List 📋
12. Commission Earned By Employees
A neat way to size up worker performance. This chart also provides good prospects for team sharing; providing a graphical motivation for committing to increased sales.
Typical Metrics: Employee Names, Commission Earned (in selected currency)
13. Top 10 Items Sold
Instantly shows your ten best sellers.
Typical Metrics: Item Names, Quantities Sold
14. Top 10 Low Stock Items
Indicates your top ten items with low store inventory levels. This information enables you to restock hot selling products/parts in advance – once a critical quantity threshold has been reached – so you never have to refuse a customer.
Typical Metrics: Item Names, Minimum Threshold (Maintenance) Quantities
15. Top 10 Customers
Lists your business’s top ten clients in terms of contributing revenue. These insights can help you prioritize customers for loyalty programs and discounts outreach.
Typical Metrics: Customer Names, Revenue Figure Generated
16. Top 10 Repair Devices
Shows the ten most-submitted device types by customers for repairs. This information can prove crucial for planning/prioritizing particular ‘fixing’ tools and methods to optimize the working hours spent.
Typical Metrics: Device Names/Types, Submitted Quantities
Graphic Type: Metrics ⚖
17. Accounts Payable (What You Owe to Vendors & Overpaying Customers)
Crucial information that can help you budget your finances.
18. Accounts Receivable (What Your Customers Owe You)
An important metric that allows you to size up your expected inflows.
19. Attachment Rate (How Your Upsells Fare)
This figure provides essential insights into how your employees are working to boost sales of attached product items. It does not, however, factor in the volume of repairs or unlocking services performed. The data, here, is collated from the total number of tickets closed for paid invoices.
20. Cost of Goods Sold (How Much Your Sold Inventory Costs)
An important metric that allows you to compare the total revenue generated by sold inventory with the costs incurred in its procurement.
21. Gross Profit (Revenue – Manufacturing + Selling Costs)
Get a snap total figure of this central metric.
22. Net Profit (Gross Profit – Operating/Interest/Tax Expenses)
The consequential, take-home, currency.
23. Refund (Payments Made to Customers – Business Outflows)
The total loss/business outflow figure incurred as a result of customer payments.
24. Taxes Payable (Taxes Due on Your Business)
A determinative business outflow.
25. Tickets Created
The total number of repair tickets generated during the set time period.
26. Tickets Pending
The total number of repair tickets that are currently open – requiring work.
27. Tickets Completed
The total number of tickets that have been closed.
28. Total Revenue
The monetary intake accrued from the total number of products and services sold (calculated by multiplying individual quantities with corresponding prices).
3 Easy Chart Combos to Quickly Check for Business Loss
Ok – so now that you’re familiar with all of the Dashboard widget options available, it’s time to link them together for more nuanced insights.
Specifically, we’re focused on identifying the signs of any incumbent or potential losses in our metrics, so prompt action can be taken to stop the bleed.
These combos – or ‘recipes’, as we also like to call them – are totally customizable, of course. And you can totally whip up your own per your analyses requirements.
The mixes come with fun labels, so you understand their benefits for your business.
Also, don’t be confused by the obliques (/) added to some arrangements. They signify the alternatives you can take to obtain the same analysis to a narrower or broader degree (thereby yielding more subtle takes).
Chart graphical category symbols have been added to help with easy identification. Glyphs encased in square brackets show the opposite/comparative sides of the equation.
ONE: When the Tickets Go Bust!
Charts Combo Arrangement:
📊 Revenue By Item Type/Employee Revenue By Item Type + 📋 Commission Earned By Employees + ⚖ Tickets Created/Tickets Pending
Analysis + Action/Resolution:
Falling repair shop revenues over a studied period, either considered in total or a narrow employee-generated sense, obviously signify that something is amiss. Based on your chosen bar chart, they can either result from a default/progressive loss of customer interest in a product/service or the instigations of a compromised worker (as described above).
If this chart downturn comes accompanied by a similar, deteriorating picture in the combo’s list and metrics charts, you may be faced with three, further, potential scenarios:
- Your workers (one or several) are demotivated – hence the falling commissions
- Your ticketing/POS system is causing issues
- Your repair techs are lagging on schedule on account of complacence or low interest
Once you’ve narrowed down the actual problem from this list, you can take suitable action.
This could entail increased commission rates or the sacking/admonition of ill-motivated workers, subscription to a better repair shop software, or the warning/hiring/letting go of non-compliant repair persons.
TWO: Should I Be Selling this Stuff?
Charts Combo Arrangement:
📊 Revenue By Item Type + 🍩 Items Sold
Analysis + Action/Resolution:
As a repair shop, you’re obviously going to be selling a range of items (parts/accessories/up-sells) and services in addition to your mainline concern. So you need to know which of these sales pair with consumer demand. Storing or ordering more of the items that generate little to no sales will certainly head your business off in the wrong direction; causing losses to pile up.
A neat way to identify these products is through this combo’s bar and donut charts. If both show little or a complete absence of revenue and quantity outflows generated by a particular item, you know it’s got to go.
Even better – you can prioritize your ordering and storage (inventory) budget for those products that fetch high sales.
THREE: Am I Spending Too Much/Earning Too Little?
Charts Combo Arrangement:
[📈 Total Revenue + 📈 Net Profit + ⚖ Accounts Receivable] – [🍩 Expenses + ⚖ Accounts Payable]
Analysis + Action/Resolution:
In this classic business performance assessment arrangement, you’re simply comparing your repair shop’s cash inflows (shown and aggregated through the two stacked line charts and one metrics chart on the right) and outflows (the donut and metrics charts on the left).
A negative equation balance would indicate that your expenses are exceeding your income – with the vice versa case also holding true.
This snap reference allows you to quickly change course if a particular sales and inventory strategy is not working – or to continue/improve on the same route if the plan is yielding the desired results.
The results from this rubric can also help you make minute operational/workflow decisions to pursue both subtle and long-ranging changes.
Now It’s Your Turn
At this point, and after you’ve subscribed to RepairDesk’s award-winning repair management software for Dashboard access, you’re faced with two either/and choices:
- Deploy the chart combos given for the above analyses and action points
- Make your custom charts arrangements
For doing the latter, you can start now – if you haven’t already – by heading over to our SUBSCRIPTION PAGE.
And if you’re going down this road, please do share your combo ideas and analyses takes in the comments below.
You can even send me an email at [email protected] to make the submission ✍.
If it makes our cut, I’ll be sure to feature it in a follow-up piece to this issue 🤓.
I bid you happy recipes drafting, cooking, and eating (if you get the analogy)!
- K
