Introduction
Contractor Compass 360™ is a year-over-year business performance dashboard for Total Office Manager users. It is launched from Total Office Manager with no need to connect to a database or login.
It summarizes key performance indicators (KPIs) so owners and managers can quickly see how current results compare to the same period in the prior year. The dashboard data is based on GAAP-compliant accrual accounting and is generated from a SQL stored procedure. The required stored procedure is installed or updated automatically when the program runs.
Many of these numbers and trends are also represented in the Executive Summary and certain other reports in Total Office Manager.
What the Numbers Mean
Current Value: The current-year amount for the selected date range.
Prior Year: The same metric for the comparable prior-year period.
Change: The dollar or count difference between current value and prior year.
Percent Change: Relative increase or decrease from prior year.
Financial Ratios and KPI Interpretation
We are only covering the very basics of this topic. Please read our other blog articles for more information.
Revenue: Total sales volume.
Gross Profit: Revenue minus direct costs.
Net Profit Before Tax (NPBT): Profitability before tax expense.
Cash Flow: Net cash movement trend.
Sales Leads: Incoming lead volume.
Revenue / Employee: Productivity ratio showing revenue generated per employee. See Employee Count Rules.
Gross Profit / Employee: Profitability productivity ratio per employee.
Employee Billable and Employee Not Billable Ratio: Compares how many employees are not billable (such as administrative staff) and how many are billable (such as technicians).
Employee Count Rules:
- When counting the number of employees, we consider full time status as 1.0 employees and part time status count as 0.50 employees. If Nothing was selected, we assume the user forgot to make a selection or did not know about the option and we count them as 1.0 employees.
- We do not count or consider employees that are inactive.
- We do not count or consider employees that have a release date equal to or less than the current date or date range. In other words, the release date cannot be inside the date range.
Billable and Unbillable Employee Counts:
Employee Billable and Employee Not Billable are weighted counts, not headcount. So a part-time billable employee contributes 0.50, not 1.00. That matches the employee-count rules. These counts do not take into consideration department selections.
Icon Meanings
Trending Up icon: Positive trend versus prior year.
Trending Down icon: Negative trend versus prior year.
No trend icon shown: Neutral or not enough comparable data (for example, a new value without a meaningful prior baseline).
Business icon: Identifies active company/database context.
Form/Feature Access
To access this dashboard: From the main menu, click Reports > Contractor Compass 360. The dashboard will open.
Note: You must have permission to view the Executive Summary report to access Contractor Compass 360.
Field and Button Definitions
Dashboard and Context Menu Actions
Refresh: Reloads KPIs from the database.
Toggle Theme: Switches between light and dark display themes.
Open Preferences: Opens dashboard preference options.
Help: Opens this online help page in your default browser.
About: Opens system and version details for Contractor Compass 360.
Hide Header / Show Header: Toggles the top page header to maximize dashboard space.
Retry (error state): Attempts to reload data after a failure.
Preferences and Features
Dashboard Profile
Select Profile: Select a profile that may have been saved. This will load those settings. You may edit them and resave or return to the dashboard.
Save as Profile: You can save the current settings with a name than can be selected whenever you wish to load those same settings.
Widgets
Widgets list (checkboxes): Show or hide individual dashboard widgets.
Add Line Widget: Inserts a divider line widget for visual grouping. The line represents a new section. Widgets will stop at the line and continue below that line.
Delete line widget: Removes a previously added line widget.
Move Up / Move Down arrows: Reorders widgets.
Departments
Show dashboard results by department: Enables department-based KPI aggregation.
Department checkboxes: Select which departments are included when department mode is enabled.
Other Controls
Display options: Toggle Hover Effect, animation, and compact spacing.
Auto refresh dashboard: Enables automatic periodic refresh. The dashboard includes a manual refresh button.
Auto Refresh Every X Number of Minutes: Sets refresh interval.
Save Preferences: Saves settings.
Back to Dashboard: Returns to the dashboard without saving additional changes.
Step-by-Step
Review KPI Status
- Be sure you have permissions to view the Executive Summary report. Contractor Compass 360™ shares that permission.
- From Total Office Manager, click Reports > Contractor Compass 360™. That will open Contractor Compass 360.
- Review each KPI card for Current Value, Prior Year, Change, and Percent Change.
- Use trend icons and percent chips to identify positive and negative movement.
- Click Refresh to update results.
- Set preferences to customize your experience.
Customize Widgets
- Right-click on the dashboard and select Open Preferences.
- In Widgets, check/uncheck items to show or hide them.
- Click Add Line Widget to insert visual separators.
- Use Up/Down arrow buttons to sort widget order.
- Remove added line widgets with the Delete icon.
- Click Save Preferences.
Filter by Department
- Open Preferences.
- Turn on Show dashboard results by department.
- Select one or more departments.
- Save preferences and return to the dashboard.
Note: When department filtering is enabled, Contractor Compass 360 uses department-level rows returned by the stored procedure, filters those rows to selected department names, and then totals the matching rows into company-level KPI values per metric key.
Tips
- Be sure you have permissions to view the Executive Summary report. Contractor Compass 360™ shares that permission.
- Bes sure you are using departments. Setup > Company > Lists > Departments.
- Be sure to select Department on all transactions and records.
- If no departments are selected while department mode is enabled, all available department rows are included.
- Department filtering quality depends on accurate department assignment in source records.
- If data fails to load, use Retry, verify database connectivity, and confirm the dashboard stored procedure exists.
- Use Hide Header to maximize viewing area when working on smaller screens.
- The current public version does not provide users with the ability to create their own widgets. That feature will be offered in the future.
