Retail & multi-location operations
One operations dashboard across 5 retail locations, replacing 3 weekly spreadsheets
5-location specialty retailer, BC and Alberta
A 5-location specialty retailer was tracking sales, inventory, and staffing in three different weekly spreadsheets, each owned by a different person. The owner saw last week's reality on Wednesday. We built one operations dashboard that pulled live data into a single screen.
Anonymized. Real project shape and outcome ranges, identifying details changed to protect client confidentiality.
Headline numbers
What changed
Report freshness
~9-day lag → live
Weekly reporting time
~10 hrs across team → ~0
Inventory stockouts
Down ~40% in first 6 months
Build time
8 weeks to launch
The problem
Where they were stuck
Three separate spreadsheets, three different owners, three different formats. Stitching them together was the controller's Monday.
By the time the owner saw a problem (slow product line, understaffed location, inventory drifting), the data was already 7 to 10 days old.
Inventory decisions were made on gut feel because the real numbers were always behind.
Store managers couldn't see how their location was doing vs. plan — only head office did, and only on Wednesdays.
The approach
What we built and why
- 1
Pulled sales data live from the existing POS via its API.
- 2
Built a focused dashboard with three views: head office (all stores), store manager (their store only), and owner (the four numbers that drive decisions).
- 3
Added simple alerts: low stock, low staffing-to-traffic ratio, sales falling behind plan for the week.
- 4
Left the POS, accounting, and HR systems alone — the dashboard reads from them, doesn't replace them.
The result
What it actually did
Reports are now live. The Monday spreadsheet-stitching job is gone.
Store managers can see their own performance every morning and adjust during the week, not after.
Inventory stockouts dropped about 40% in the first six months because the alerts surface them while they're still fixable.
Owner has a single screen on a phone that answers 'how are we doing right now?' in 5 seconds.
Under the hood
What it's built on
Stack & shape
- Web dashboard (mobile-first for the owner)
- Live read of POS data via API
- Role-based views for owner, head office, and store managers
- Email/SMS alerts for the rules that matter