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Part of Web Applications and Portals

Dashboards andbusiness reporting.

A reporting layer reads from the systems you already run and answers the questions your leadership team asks every week, on one screen, before the meeting. It is one of three services under Web Applications and Portals.

One screen per audience, answering agreed questions from live systems, with the exceptions surfaced first.

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Know what you are building? Book a discovery call. Not sure where the problem is? Request the audit.

HUREAL / Material studies

In your words

Soundslike this?

  1. Somebody spends Monday morning building a spreadsheet that is out of date by Tuesday.

  2. Two people in the same meeting mean two different things by the same word.

  3. Head office cannot see the branches the same way.

  4. We find out something went wrong because a customer told us.

  5. Our numbers live in five systems and five logins.

  6. The board pack is assembled by hand every quarter.

  7. We changed CRM and lost three years of history.

If the problem is that the source systems do not agree with each other in the first place, the page for that is Integrations and Data.

In plain language

Start with the question,not with the data.

Most companies have their numbers. They are in five systems, and somebody spends Monday morning turning them into a spreadsheet. A reporting layer reads from those systems directly and presents the questions rather than the tables: what came in, what shipped, what is late, what is at risk, and what changed since last week.

A report is read. A dashboard is acted on.

It is built around the decisions your team actually makes, which is why it starts with the questions and not with the data. Every question arrives with the decision it drives attached, and a question that drives no decision does not get a screen.

Done properly it also flags exceptions, so leadership runs the business from what needs attention rather than from a report nobody finishes reading. The definitions are the quiet half of the value: writing down what counts as a lead, an order, a completed job or an active customer usually settles an argument that predates the project.

When the smaller thing is the right thing. With a handful of sources and modest history, direct connections are simpler and cheaper than storage, and that is what we will recommend. And if the underlying systems disagree about the same fact, a dashboard will show the disagreement faster and fix nothing: the first project is Integrations and Data, and we would rather say so than build a beautiful argument between two systems.

The capability table

What a reportingbuild includes.

Thirteen capabilities, what each one does in plain words, and what it changes for the business. The definitions are listed before the connections, because a number nobody agrees on is not worth automating.

Dashboards and business reporting, the capability table
Capability What it does What it changes
The questionsBefore any connection
The question list What leadership asks weekly and monthly, in their words, with the decision each answer drives. A screen exists because a decision needs it.
Metric definitions, agreed and written What counts as a lead, an order, a completed job, an active customer. Two people stop meaning two things by one word.
Data source mapping Which system holds each answer, at what quality, with which gaps. You find out what cannot be answered yet before you pay for it.
The pipelineWhere the numbers come from
Connections to your systems CRM, ERP, accounting, e-commerce, advertising platforms and analytics. The assembly work stops.
Calculations tested against known numbers Checked against a figure somebody already trusts. The first reaction to the dashboard is not disbelief.
Historical storage So trends survive a change in the source systems. Changing CRM stops costing you three years.
Permissions per role and per location Who sees one branch, and who sees all of them. One build serves head office and a site manager.
The screensAnd what happens without them
Dashboards per audience Leadership, operations, sales, finance, and per location. Each audience gets their questions rather than everybody's.
Exceptions surfaced first The rules that decide what is abnormal, agreed with you. Problems find people rather than waiting to be noticed.
Alerts Pointed at a named person rather than at a shared inbox. Somebody owns it.
Scheduled briefs By email or chat, assembled automatically. The Monday report exists before Monday.
Drill down from the number to the records So a figure can be interrogated rather than believed. An argument about a number ends in the data.
Export for the board pack and the accountant In the form they already use. The quarterly assembly stops being somebody's week.

Scroll the table sideways to read it.

How it works

One place to look,many places to read.

The parent's drawing, read as reporting. The actions on the left are questions people currently ask a person. The systems on the right are where the answers already are. And the line is where a number that does not add up waits for somebody who knows why.

Scroll the drawing sideways to read it.

The same board, read as a question rather than as a task. What stops on the left is the Monday spreadsheet.

What the system does

The work, the path it takes, and everything HUREAL builds. It never means anything else.

What stays with a person

The line, its single opening, and the plate standing in it. On a light board it is the one dark plate.

What you already run

Present, named, and not for sale. The lowest contrast on the board, deliberately.

  1. The questions on the left are the brief.

    What came in, what shipped, what is late, what is at risk. Every one of them is currently answered by interrupting somebody, and every one of them has an answer already sitting in a system.

  2. One place, one login, your definitions.

    The definitions are what make it one place rather than five. A completed job means one thing across the whole build, agreed in writing, and that agreement is usually the moment an old argument ends.

  3. It reads the systems of record.

    CRM, ERP, accounting, e-commerce, advertising platforms and analytics, read directly. History is stored, so a change of CRM does not take your trend with it.

  4. The assembly stops.

    The struck through line is Monday morning. The spreadsheet that was out of date by Tuesday is the thing this replaces, and the saving is a person's week, every week.

  5. A number that does not add up waits for a person.

    Exceptions are surfaced first and alerts point at somebody by name. Where a figure is wrong because a source is wrong, the dashboard says which source, and that is the difference between a reporting layer and a rumour.

Messy data is normal, and the mapping stage is where it gets found. Some questions can be answered today, some need a source fixed first, and you hear which is which before you commit to anything.

Integrations and Data

The deliverables

What youend up with.

  • One screen per audience

    Answering agreed questions from live systems.

  • A written definition for every metric

    Which usually settles an argument that predates the project.

  • The question list

    What leadership asks, with the decision each answer drives.

  • Alerts on the exceptions that matter

    Pointed at a named person rather than at a shared inbox.

  • The Monday report, assembled before Monday

    By email or chat.

  • History that survives a change of CRM

    Stored rather than borrowed from a source system.

  • Drill down from every number to its records

    So a figure can be checked rather than believed.

  • The source map

    Which system holds each answer, at what quality, and where the gaps are.

What is not on this list. Statutory and financial reporting. This does operational reporting well, and it should feed your accountant cleaner inputs rather than compete with them. Where the source systems disagree with each other, the fix is upstream and it is Integrations and Data.

By category

What a reporting layerconnects to.

By category, because the category is the question. A dashboard is only ever as true as the least reliable system feeding it, which is why the mapping stage is listed before the screens.

  • CRM

    Where pipeline, source and owner live.

    Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Dynamics

  • ERP and inventory

    Where orders, stock and cost are true.

    NetSuite, SAP, Sage, an in house system

  • Accounting

    Where revenue, cost and receivables are reconciled.

    QuickBooks, Sage, Xero

  • E-commerce

    Where online orders and returns are recorded.

    Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce

  • Advertising and marketing

    Where spend has to meet result.

    Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, your email platform

  • Analytics

    Where behaviour on your own properties is measured.

    Google Analytics, server side tagging

  • Operations and field systems

    Where jobs, routes and completions are recorded.

    dispatch, field service, project management

  • Spreadsheets

    Where the number nobody has systematised still lives.

    Excel and Google Sheets, read rather than ignored

Every connection is validated by HUREAL's engineers during scoping and confirmed in writing before signature. Where a system genuinely cannot be connected, you hear it during discovery rather than during the build, and the scope is drawn around it instead of making a platform migration the price of entry.

Asked and answered

Questions peopleactually ask.

  • Our data is messy. Is this premature?

    Messy is normal and the mapping stage finds it. Some questions can be answered today, some need a source fixed first, and we tell you which is which before you commit. Waiting for clean data is how companies wait for years.

  • Do we need a data warehouse?

    Sometimes. With a handful of sources and modest history, direct connections are simpler and cheaper. With many sources, real history, or sources that change, storage pays for itself. The recommendation comes with its reasoning and its cost, and you can disagree with it.

  • Can it replace the reports our accountant produces?

    It can replace the assembly work, not the accountant. Operational reporting is what this does well. Statutory and financial reporting belongs with your accountant, and the dashboard should feed them cleaner inputs rather than compete with them.

  • What happens when two systems disagree?

    The dashboard says which source each number came from, so a disagreement becomes a specific question rather than a general doubt. Fixing the disagreement is usually upstream work, and we will tell you which system is wrong rather than averaging the two.

  • Who decides what a lead is?

    You do, in writing, during the definitions stage, and that is often the most valuable hour of the project. Once it is agreed it means the same thing everywhere in the build, which is what stops two people meaning two things by one word.

  • What if we change CRM next year?

    History is stored rather than borrowed, so your trend survives the change. Connecting the new system is a piece of work rather than a restart, and the metric definitions carry over because they were written down independently of any one tool.

  • What does it cost?

    The build price is set after the discovery call and sent in a written proposal, because an honest number needs the scope, and here the scope is the number of sources and the state they are in. The number is written into the signed scope and does not move once it is signed.

Three pages next to this one

Where thissits.

Close

Two ways to start.Both end with a document you own.

Book a discovery call

For when you know which process is costing you and want the scope before the spend. A discovery call with the people who actually run it. We map it end to end including the exceptions, name what a system would take over, and afterwards you get a written proposal with a scope, a price and a timeline you can sign or walk away from.

Book a discovery call

Request a performance audit

For when you want the evidence before the decision. We look at what you have against the job you want it to do, and give you a prioritised plan with the arithmetic attached. The document is yours either way.

Request a performance audit

Know what you are building? Book a discovery call. Not sure where the problem is? Request the audit. If neither is right for you, we will say so, and tell you what is.

Not ready for either? Talk to the demonstration in your browser for three minutes, or paste your own address and hear it answer as your business. No form and no booking, and the transcript arrives by email a minute later.

Hear it work
A material study photographed in bright daylight. A thin sliver of the monumental pleated turquoise glass wave enters from the right edge of a very wide frame, its fins and one polished silver ribbon catching the light at the crest, above a pearl reflective floor that runs the full width. The left of the frame is an almost empty pale mint room.

The numbers, before the meeting.

HUREAL / Material studies