The Story Behind Our Reports Dashboard — What We Show, What We Don't, and Why
A dashboard crammed with data isn't necessarily useful. We chose to show what's actionable and hide what's noise — here's the story behind those decisions.
More Data ≠ Better
When we first built our reporting feature, the temptation to show everything was enormous. Total sales, hourly breakdowns, per-cashier stats, per-payment-method splits, per-category views, per-item details, daily-weekly-monthly views, growth rates, moving averages, year-over-year trends...
All that data exists in the database. Technically, we could display every bit of it. But the more important question: does a cafe owner who just got home from a 10-hour shift need all of that?
The answer is almost always: no. What they need are answers to a few specific questions. And a dashboard's job isn't to display data — it's to answer questions.
The Questions We Used as Our Compass
We made a list of questions we believed are most often on an F&B business owner's mind at the end of the day:
- What were total sales today? Up or down from yesterday?
- How many transactions happened?
- What's the average transaction value?
- Which menu items sold the most?
- What's the split between cash and non-cash?
- Any cash discrepancies?
- Which shift performed best?
Seven questions. Not seventy. Our dashboard is built to answer these seven quickly — without needing to click, filter, or scroll extensively.
What We Show
Today's summary. Total revenue, transaction count, average per transaction. These three numbers sit at the very top and are the first thing you see. If an owner only has 5 seconds, they at least know these.
Daily trend. A simple chart showing sales over the last 7 days. Not a complex chart — just a line graph that immediately shows whether the trend is up, down, or flat.
Top products. The 5-10 most-sold menu items with quantities. This helps identify star items and also detect if something suddenly dropped off.
Payment method breakdown. What percentage is cash, what percentage is QRIS or other non-cash. Important for cash float planning and tracking digital payment adoption.
Per-shift summary. Every closed shift shows a summary: total sales, transaction count, cash discrepancy. This makes accountability visible without requiring an interrogation.
What We Chose Not to Show (On the Main Page)
Year-over-year comparison. Most of our users are cafes that are 1-2 years old. Year-over-year data isn't meaningful yet. If and when most users have a full year of data, we might add this.
Customer demographics. We don't collect individual customer data (that's on the V2-V3 roadmap). Rather than showing an empty dashboard section that frustrates people, we don't show it at all until the data exists.
Complex analytics. Moving averages, cohort analysis, funnel conversion — these are powerful tools for businesses with data analysts. But for a cafe owner who's also the cashier, manager, and cleaning crew — this is more confusing than helpful.
Real-time live ticker. We experimented with a dashboard that updated every second. Turns out it made people check too frequently and lose focus on operations. Data that updates at shift closing is actionable enough.
The Hardest Design Decisions
Hiding technically available data. This is counterintuitive for engineers. The data's there — why not show it? But every number you display demands attention. And attention is a limited resource — especially for someone who just finished a long shift.
Defaulting to today, not this week. Most POS systems show a weekly summary as the default view. We chose daily because from our observations, cafe owners most often want to know "how was today" — and they can switch to weekly or monthly if needed.
Making cash discrepancies prominent. This was a decision that made some people uncomfortable. Why should cash discrepancies be so easy to see? Because discrepancies that get ignored accumulate. When every shift closing immediately shows the gap, natural accountability forms — and issues can be addressed while they're still small.
Export: For Those Who Need More
We recognize that a simplified dashboard doesn't cover every use case. Some owners want deeper analysis — or need to share data with their accountant, partner, or investor.
For that, we provide CSV export. All raw data — transactions, per-item breakdowns, per-shift details — can be downloaded and processed in a spreadsheet however you need.
The principle: dashboard for quick answers, export for deep analysis. Two tools for two different needs.
What We Learned
Building a reports dashboard taught us that good product design is often about what you don't show, not what you show.
Every chart, every number, every filter you add increases cognitive load. And for users who are already exhausted after a long shift, cognitive load is the primary enemy of usability.
The most useful dashboard isn't the most comprehensive one — it's the one that answers the most important questions the fastest.