AI reporting and insights, built on custom dashboards

Know the numbers before the meeting

Most businesses have their numbers in six places, three versions of the truth, and someone losing two days a month building a report nobody fully trusts. We fix that with one custom dashboard, built on your real numbers.

★★★★★5.0 across 52 Google reviews
Your first dashboard, live in month oneOn either build, on your real data, not a template with your logo dropped on it.
Every number agrees with every otherReconciled across your accounts, CRM, website and ad platforms, so nobody argues about whose figure is right.
Written in plain EnglishNot thirty charts to interpret. What changed, why, and what it means, in a paragraph you can actually use.
The numbers behind them

Three builds,
and what they could finally see.

Each of these systems reports on itself, so the business sees live numbers instead of waiting on a spreadsheet somebody has to build.

The Remove Spray Foam quoting system built by designbox
Remove Spray Foam
Spray foam removal

Survey in the morning,
quote out the same day

Every quote and every win now reports itself, so they can see conversion and turnaround live instead of guessing. Quotes also went out 5× faster once the numbers were in front of them.

faster from survey to quote
4.5×more sales
Zeroenquiries lost between survey and quote
The Rolling Bean booking and quoting system built by designbox
The Rolling Bean
Mobile coffee bar hire

The whole operation,
in one system

Enquiries, bookings and revenue report themselves in one place instead of hiding in a diary and a spreadsheet. Still being built out, already showing what is actually in the pipeline.

10×faster to get a quote out
Zeroenquiries falling through the cracks
Onesystem instead of a phone, a diary and a spreadsheet
The designbox sales and reporting system
Design Box
Our own sales and reporting

We ran it on ourselves first

Our sales and reporting used to take seven hours a week to assemble by hand. It reports itself now in 45 minutes of reading, and seeing it live is part of what drove sales up 2.5×.

45 minsto do what used to take seven hours
2.5×sales and sales capacity, within three months
6 hrsback with the sales team, every week




What we build for you

Watch a dashboard build itself

Pick a business type and watch us connect the sources, reconcile the numbers and write the summary. This is what lands on your screen every morning.

Your dashboardConnecting your sources
  
This morning’s summaryWritten for you, not generated noise

Built by hand
Now
Refreshed

Illustrative examples using representative figures. Every dashboard we build is designed around the numbers your business actually runs on, and the real builds are just below.

Reporting, delivered

The report comes to you

Most people never open a dashboard. They will read an email. So every dashboard we build also sends itself, on whatever schedule suits, to whoever needs it, written in plain English rather than dumped as a wall of charts.

Different reports for different people. The board gets the summary, the sales manager gets their pipeline, the warehouse gets what shipped late.
Daily, weekly, monthly, or when something moves. Set a threshold and it tells you the moment margin drops or a target slips.
Written, not generated noise. What changed, why it changed, and what is worth doing about it.
Branded as yours. Your logo, your colours, sent from your domain, so it looks like your business built it.
DB
Monday numbers
reports@yourcompany.co.uk · 06:02
Weekly email

Morning. Last week in one line: a strong week on volume, a weak one on margin.

Revenue
£112,400
+9%
Margin
21.8%
−1.4 pts
Orders
486
+6%

Revenue beat the four-week average by 9%, driven almost entirely by two large trade orders rather than a broad lift. Margin slipped to 21.8% because those two orders were priced at the old rate before the supplier increase came through.

Worth a look: 9 invoices moved past 30 days this week, £18,200 in total.

Full dashboard is live if you want to dig in. Reply to this email if you want anything added.

A real example of the weekly email that goes with a dashboard we would build.

Where they earn their keep

A view for every part of your business

Everyone gets what they need from the same reconciled data, rather than four teams keeping four spreadsheets. Pick a department to see what usually goes on their view.

SalesOperationsFinanceCustomer serviceMarketingAdmin & people
Pipeline value and movementWhat is in the pipeline, what moved this week, and what has gone quiet, without anyone tidying the CRM first.
Quote and win ratesHow many quotes went out, what was won, at what value, and how that compares to a normal month.
Source of every saleWhich channel, campaign or referral actually produced revenue, reconciled against the accounts.
Rep and team performanceFair comparison across the team on the same definitions, with no spreadsheet politics.
Quotes going coldEvery quote still waiting on an answer, sorted by value and age, so the next chase is always obvious.
Plugs into

HubSpotPipedriveSalesforceOutlookWhatsAppXero

The Remove Spray Foam quoting system built by designbox
What changes

Sales stops running on gut feel and half-remembered numbers. Everyone sees the same pipeline, the same win rate and the same source data, so the conversation is about what to do rather than whose figure is right.

Throughput and capacityWhat went out, what is behind, and where the bottleneck actually is this week.
On-time performanceDelivered or completed on time, by site, by team, by customer, with the reasons attached.
Supplier reliabilityWhich suppliers are late, how often, and what it has cost you in missed jobs.
Stock and ageingWhat is not moving, what is at risk, and how much cash is sitting on the shelf.
Job profitabilityWhat each job actually made once labour, materials and rework are counted, not what the quote assumed.
Plugs into

SageSharePointGoogle SheetsOutlookClickUpWooCommerce

Manufacturing and B2B website design by designbox
What changes

Operations stops finding out about problems a week late. Bottlenecks, late jobs and stock at risk are visible the morning they happen, not in the month-end review.

Cash and aged debtWhat is owed, by whom, how late, and what it means for the next few weeks.
Margin, properly calculatedGross and net margin on the definitions you agreed, not whatever the platform reports.
Board pack, built for youThe whole management pack assembled and reconciled on the first, with the commentary written.
Rolling forecastA forecast that updates itself against what actually happened, rather than a stale spreadsheet.
VAT and payroll, ahead of timeWhat is due and when, set against the cash you will actually have on the day it leaves.
Plugs into

XeroQuickBooksSageStripeGoCardlessPower BI

Accountancy and finance website design by designbox
What changes

Finance gets the month-end pack built for them, reconciled, on the first. That is typically two days a month back, and a forecast that is actually current.

Response and resolution timesHow fast you answer, how fast you fix, and where it slips on busy weeks.
Volume and reasonsHow much is coming in and what it is actually about, so you fix causes rather than symptoms.
Utilisation and no-showsSlots filled, slots wasted, no-show rate, and what an empty slot is costing you.
Satisfaction and reviewsScores and reviews tracked over time and tied back to the jobs and people behind them.
Workload across the teamWho is carrying the queue, where it piles up, and when you genuinely need more hands.
Plugs into

OutlookWhatsAppGoogle CalendarHubSpotWordPressTeams

Hotel and hospitality website design by designbox
What changes

Service problems show up as patterns rather than anecdotes, so you fix the cause instead of firefighting the same complaint every week.

Spend against returnEvery channel side by side on real revenue, reconciled with the accounts rather than platform-reported.
Cost per lead and per saleWhat a lead really costs by channel, and what it costs to actually close one.
Content and campaign performanceWhat is working, what has gone stale, and what is worth doing more of.
Customer value over timeWhat a customer is worth beyond the first sale, which changes what you can afford to pay for one.
Enquiry to sale, end to endThe full journey from first click to paid invoice, so you see which enquiries actually turn into money.
Plugs into

GA4Google AdsMeta AdsKlaviyoWordPressLooker

A designbox AI dashboard in use
What changes

Marketing spend is finally judged on real revenue rather than platform-reported numbers, which usually changes where the budget goes within a month.

Headcount and costWhat the team costs, where it sits, and how that tracks against revenue.
Recruitment pipelineRoles open, time to hire, and where candidates drop out of the process.
Absence and utilisationHoliday, sickness and available capacity, so planning is based on who is actually there.
Compliance and expiryCertificates, insurance and training with expiry dates visible before they become a problem.
Overtime and agency spendWhere extra hours and temporary cover are creeping in, spotted before they become the norm.
Plugs into

OutlookSharePointGoogle WorkspaceClickUpTeamsBreatheHR

Talent and career platform website design by designbox
What changes

Headcount, capacity and cost sit next to revenue, so growth decisions are made on what the business can actually carry.

Who this works for

If any of this sounds familiar, you need this more than you think

Industry matters less than symptom. Find the one that sounds like your last board meeting.

01

Your numbers live in six places

Every quote takes a skilled person hours, and the slow ones lose the job to whoever answered first. This is where most of our clients start, and it is the fastest thing to fix.

Any business past about ten people
02

Nobody trusts the report

Every meeting starts by arguing about whose number is right, so decisions wait.

Anywhere two systems disagree
03

You find out too late

Margin slipped six weeks ago and you found out at month end, when it was already spent.

Anyone running on monthly reporting
04

Reporting eats real days

Someone expensive spends two days a month exporting, pasting and fixing broken formulas.

Finance and operations teams everywhere
05

You have multiple sites or teams

You cannot compare branches or people fairly because everyone measures slightly differently.

Multi-site retail, hospitality, trades and services
06

You are about to make a big decision

Hiring, opening a site, dropping a product line, and the data to justify it does not exist yet.

Anyone planning the next twelve months

We pull from everything you
already run

Nothing gets replaced. If your data lives in it, we can almost certainly read it, including the spreadsheet nobody wants to admit to.

CRM & salesHubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, HighLevel, Monday
Accounts & financeXero, QuickBooks, Sage, Stripe, GoCardless
Web & ecommerceWordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, Webflow, Magento
Email, chat & calendarsOutlook, Google Workspace, Slack, Teams, WhatsApp
Files, data & projectsSharePoint, Google Drive, Dropbox, Notion, Airtable, ClickUp
ReportingGA4, Google Ads, Meta Ads, Looker, Power BI

Logo wall: Kon to swap these tiles for real brand SVGs, greyscale on dark, uniform height. Behind them we use the leading data and reporting platforms, and we pick per job rather than tying you to one vendor. And if your data lives somewhere unusual, that is normally solvable too.

How we work

From scattered spreadsheets to one honest view

No months of discovery and no strategy deck that sits in a drawer. Every stage ends with something you can hold, and your first dashboard is live inside month one.

1

The strategy

A designbox team member working on a client website

Half a day on your numbers, with the people who actually use them. We map where your data lives and how a job really travels from enquiry to cash, then design your dashboard on paper before anything is built.

Where every number lives, and which version of each is true
The views, reports and integrations your dashboard needs, agreed
Metric definitions everyone will trust, written down
Yours to keep whatever you decide next. £500, credited off your build
Within a fortnight
2

Your first dashboard goes live

A designbox automation running in the background

We do not build for six months and hope. We take the single best opportunity from the blueprint and put it into production, in your systems, on your data, with the rules agreed with you.

One live dashboard on your real, reconciled data
Built inside the software you already run
Every metric defined and agreed with you, then written down
Documentation and a training session so your team can use it
Inside month one, on either build
3

Roll it out further

designbox designers and developers at work

With one view proving itself, we work down the roadmap. More departments, deeper sources, automated reports going out to the people who need them, and alerts when something moves.

Department and site views from the same reconciled data
Integrations into your CRM, accounts, website and comms
Dashboards showing what ran, what it saved and what needed a human
Automated reports, and agents that act on what they show
Typically 60 to 90 days
4

Run, improve and hand over

The designbox team working together in the studio

Reporting breaks quietly. A source changes its API, a field gets renamed, a new product line does not fit the old categories, and your business does not stand still either. We monitor, fix and extend, train your team, and document everything.

Monitoring, so a broken source is fixed before you notice
Small changes and tweaks included in your monthly care
A quarterly call on what the numbers say, on Pro
Full ownership of everything built, with no lock-in
Ongoing, and cancellable

94%

less time getting to your numbers

That is roughly the average time saved once the dashboard gathers and reconciles the numbers for you. And the figures come out more reliable, not less.

Building the monthly report

2 days20 min

You read the two pages that matter, not the thirty

Reconciling sales across your tools

4 hours8 min

You get one figure that already agrees with the accounts

Pulling a board pack together

1 day15 min

You add the commentary only you can write

Getting numbers ready for a meeting

2 hours5 min

You walk in already knowing where you stand

Spotting a product line slipping

3 hours2 min

You catch it while it still matters

Agreeing one true revenue figure

half a daylive

Nobody argues about whose number is right

Estimates for typical reporting, not results from a specific client. The measured before-and-afters are up in the case studies. What matters is not the exact figure, it is that the time you used to lose gathering and reconciling numbers goes back into using them.

Pricing

Pay once to build it,
then a little to keep it live

A dashboard is a product you own, not a retainer. Strategy first, a fixed-price build, then a small monthly that keeps it hosted, secure and reconciled.

Step one, whichever build you choose

Dashboard and reporting strategy

Half a day on your numbers. We map where your data lives, agree the definitions everyone will trust, and design your dashboard on paper: the views, the reports and the integrations. You leave with the blueprint and a fixed quote for the build.

£500credited off your build

If you decide not to build, the blueprint is still yours to keep, and you can take it anywhere.

Core dashboard
£1,500one-off build

then £150 a month to keep it live

For getting the numbers that run the business into one live, reconciled view.

One dashboard covering the numbers that run the business
Built on your real data and live in month one
Up to three standard integrations included, like Xero, your CRM and GA4
One automated email report, weekly or monthly, in plain English
Reconciled, so every figure agrees with the accounts
Unlimited users on any device, no per-seat licences
Fixed price, agreed in writing before we start
£150 a month keeps it hosted, secure, monitored and cared for
Start with Core
For the whole business
Pro dashboard
£3,500one-off build

then £299 a month to keep it live

For reporting across departments, sites or brands, with reports landing in the right inboxes.

Everything in Core, plus:
Up to five department or site views: sales, ops, finance, marketing
Up to six standard integrations included
Up to four automated email reports, daily to monthly, per team
Ask your numbers questions in plain English from Claude or ChatGPT
Priority queue for changes and support
£299 a month care, with a quarterly call on what the numbers say
Start with Pro
Need more? Simple add-ons
Extra standard integration£150 each, one-off
Bespoke integrationquoted, typically from £350
Extra email report£95 each, one-off
Extra dashboard viewquoted at strategy

Prices exclude VAT. The £500 strategy is credited off either build. Care starts when your dashboard goes live, rolls monthly and can be cancelled with 30 days' notice. A standard integration is any tool with a ready-made connection, like Xero, HubSpot or GA4; we confirm which of yours are standard at strategy, before the build is quoted.

Compare this with doing it by handTwo days a month of management time costs about £6,100 a year. See the breakdown

Most businesses are not comparing us with another agency. They are comparing us with muddling through: someone senior assembling spreadsheets every month, or a self-built BI tool nobody quite trusts. Here is that comparison, honestly.

Doing it by hand
Management time two days a month assembling reports, at a £50k salary with NI and pension£6,100
Per-seat BI licences if you self-build, ten seats£1,000+
Getting a self-build set up properly typical consultant engagement, one-off£4,000+
Reconciling the arguments when the CRM and the accounts disagreehours, monthly
Every year£7,100+
  • The two days come out of someone’s real job, every single month
  • The numbers still disagree, because nothing reconciles them
  • When the person who built the spreadsheet leaves, the system leaves with them
A Core dashboard with us
Build fixed price, agreed before we start£1,500
Care hosting, security, monitoring and small changes, £150 a month£1,800 a year
Per-seat licencesnone
Reconciliationbuilt in
Year one£3,300
  • £1,800 a year from year two, against £7,100+ by hand every year
  • Unlimited users, so the whole team sees the same figures
  • Maintained by us, so it does not leave when someone does
Doing it by hand, every year

£7,100+

Core dashboard, year one

£3,300

£3,800 less in year onethen £1,800 a year, against £7,100 or more by hand, every year

Management time at a £50,000 salary with employer national insurance and pension, two days a month, matching the reporting tasks shown further up this page. Licence and consultant figures are typical UK ranges. Every figure is an estimate to make the comparison honest, not a quote.

The people behind it

Why Design Box

Plenty of people are selling AI who have never run a business. We have, from Essex, for over a decade.

10+
years running the agency
51
five-star Google reviews

You get people, not a portal

One account manager who knows your business and who you can actually ring. You never explain yourself twice.

We build the systems your data comes from

Websites, stores, CRMs and reporting are our day job. Most reporting firms can only visualise whatever they are given, however messy it is.

Ten years of being accountable

Cyber Essentials Plus certified, a decade of building and running business-critical systems, and clients we started with years ago. AI is new. Answering for the outcome is not.

We will tell you when it is no

Some processes should not be automated and some businesses are not ready. The blueprint exists so we can say so early.

The designbox team working on an ecommerce campaign
designbox team members collaborating on a project
The designbox team in the studio
The bit everyone worries about

Your data, your rules, your systems

Two questions come up in every single conversation: what happens to our data, and what happens if we leave. Here are both answers up front.

You own everything we build

The dashboards, the data pipelines and the definitions are yours, not licensed back to you
The metric definitions, the logic and the documentation come with them
Everything runs on your accounts, so your data stays in your systems
If you leave, you keep the lot and we hand it over properly, documented

No lock-in and no hostage-taking. If we are worth keeping, it will be because the work is good.

Security and control

Cyber Essentials Plus certified, and a decade of handling client systems
Every figure traces back to a source you can check, with the calculation written down
A full record of every refresh, so you know the numbers are current
Access is scoped, so people only see the views and figures they should

Where AI is involved, the model and processing arrangements are covered in writing before anything touches live data, and we go through them in the blueprint.

Good questions

Dashboards and reporting, answered honestly

Can’t see yours? Ask us anything on a quick call, no obligation.

Is this Power BI, Looker, or something you build?
Whichever fits. For most businesses we build on Looker Studio or Power BI because they are cost-effective and your team can poke at them. Where a business needs something more bespoke, or a dashboard customers or franchisees will log into, we build it properly as a web application. The tool matters far less than the pipeline and the definitions behind it.
What if our data is a mess?
It usually is, and that is the job. Duplicated customers, three spellings of the same supplier, a spreadsheet that half the business relies on. Part of the strategy is finding all of that and deciding what to fix, what to work around and what to leave alone.
Why does reconciliation matter so much?
Because it is the difference between a dashboard people use and one they ignore. If your ad platform claims 40 sales and your accounts show 31, somebody has to decide which number you report and why. We do that work up front and write the answer down, so meetings stop starting with an argument.
How often does it refresh?
Most dashboards refresh overnight, so the numbers are waiting before anyone starts. Where it matters, some sources refresh hourly or in near real time. We set that per source, because refreshing everything constantly costs money without making anyone smarter.
Can it email the report rather than us logging in?
Yes, and we would recommend it. Most people never open a dashboard but they will read an email. Every dashboard we build can send a written summary on whatever schedule suits, to different people with different views, from your own domain and in your branding.
Where does the AI come in?
Mainly in the writing. Turning the movements in your data into a paragraph that explains what changed and why is exactly the kind of job AI is good at, and it is checked against the reconciled figures rather than making things up. AI also helps spot anomalies worth flagging. The numbers themselves are calculated, not guessed.
Do we own it?
Yes, entirely. The dashboards, the data pipelines, the metric definitions and the documentation are yours. Everything runs on your own accounts, so if you stop working with us you keep all of it and we hand it over properly.
How quickly will we see something?
Your first dashboard is live inside month one on either build, on your real data. Your strategy blueprint comes back within a fortnight, and reporting across the whole business usually takes 60 to 90 days.
What does it cost?
The strategy is £500, credited off either build. A Core dashboard is £1,500 to build and £150 a month to keep it hosted, secure and cared for. Pro is £3,500 and £299 a month. Extra standard integrations are £150 each. Prices exclude VAT, and platform licences, where a tool needs them, sit on your own account and are usually modest.
Will our team be able to use it?
That is the point of designing it around the handful of numbers that decide things rather than everything you could possibly plot. There is a training session with every build, and if people are not using it, we treat that as our problem to fix rather than theirs.
What happens when a source changes?
Reporting breaks quietly, which is the real risk. An API changes, a field gets renamed, a new product category does not fit the old grouping. Everything we build is monitored as part of your care plan, so we know it broke before you do, and fixing it is included.
Can it trigger actions, not just show numbers?
Yes. Once the data is clean and in one place, acting on it is straightforward: alerts when margin drops below a threshold, a chase sequence when invoices age past 30 days, a message when a site falls behind. That is where this crosses over with automation and AI agents.
Next step

Let’s get your numbers into one honest place

Thirty minutes, no hard sell, and an honest answer either way.

Rather check us out first? Ask an AI what it makes of us