Radical Transparency
We believe you should know exactly where your data comes from, how we score it, and why. No black boxes. No hand-waving. Here's the full picture.
Where your data comes from
DashAdvisr connects to the tools you already use. We pull only the data we need to score your business and generate insights — nothing more.
Square POS
- Transaction data and payment methods
- Itemized sales and line-item detail
- Tips, refunds, and discounts
- Daily and weekly revenue totals
QuickBooks Online
- Profit & Loss statements
- Balance sheet snapshots
- Accounts payable and receivable
- Payroll summaries
Toast POS
- Restaurant-specific sales data
- Menu item performance metrics
- Labor data and scheduling costs
- Void and comp tracking
Clover POS
- Transaction history and trends
- Inventory counts and movement
- Employee activity and clock data
- Tender types and payment mix
Homebase
- Employee schedules and shifts
- Actual hours worked vs. planned
- Overtime tracking
- Labor cost forecasting
Eventbrite
- Event ticket sales and revenue
- Attendance and check-in rates
- Revenue per event breakdowns
- Event type performance
Google Business
- Review scores and volume
- Response rates and timing
- Search impressions and visibility
- Customer sentiment trends
Gusto
- Payroll data and pay periods
- Tax withholdings and filings
- Benefits costs per employee
- Contractor payment tracking
Yelp Coming Soon
- Review sentiment analysis
- Rating trends over time
- Competitive positioning data
- Category ranking signals
Manual Entry
- Revenue and expense inputs
- Inventory counts and cost data
- Custom metrics you define
- Override or supplement any source
All third-party product names, logos, and brands mentioned on this page are the property of their respective owners. DashAdvisr is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Square, Intuit (QuickBooks), Toast, Clover (Fiserv), Homebase, Eventbrite, Google, Gusto, Yelp, or any other third-party service mentioned. Integration availability and data access are subject to each provider's API terms and conditions.
The 29 metrics we track
Every metric is individually benchmarked against published industry data. Here is exactly what we measure, organized by domain.
Revenue
Daily, weekly, and monthly top-line performance — the foundation of every insight.
Revenue Growth Rate
Period-over-period momentum. Are you accelerating or stalling?
Gross Profit Margin
Revenue minus cost of goods sold. How much you keep before overhead.
Net Profit Margin
Bottom-line health after all expenses. The metric that matters most.
Labor Cost %
Payroll as a share of revenue. The single biggest controllable expense for most businesses.
COGS %
Cost of goods as a share of revenue. Directly tied to pricing and purchasing decisions.
Prime Cost
Labor + COGS combined — the #1 metric in food and beverage. Tells you if your core ops are profitable.
Operating Expenses
Overhead, rent, utilities, and other fixed costs. Critical for break-even analysis.
Cash Flow
Money coming in vs. money going out. Positive cash flow means survival.
Accounts Receivable Aging
Outstanding invoices and how long they have been unpaid. Flags collection risks early.
Break-even Point
The revenue level where costs are fully covered. Knowing this number changes how you plan.
Runway
Days of cash remaining at your current burn rate. The most honest metric in business.
Labor Efficiency
Revenue generated per labor hour. Shows whether you are overstaffed or understaffed.
Overtime Hours
Hours beyond scheduled shifts. Small overages compound into thousands per month.
Staff Turnover Rate
How often you lose and replace employees. Hiring is expensive — retention is cheaper.
Schedule Adherence
Actual hours worked vs. planned hours. Measures operational discipline.
Revenue per Employee
Total revenue divided by headcount. A simple but powerful productivity signal.
Peak vs. Off-Peak Staffing
Whether your labor hours align with when customers actually show up.
Event Impact Rating (EIR)
Revenue generated per dollar spent on entertainment. The ROI of your programming calendar.
Attendance Rate
Actual turnout vs. expected capacity. Flags marketing gaps or pricing issues.
Genre / Type Performance
Which event categories drive the most revenue. Not all events are created equal.
Day-of-Week Revenue
Performance broken down by day. Reveals which nights carry the business.
Seasonal Trends
Month-over-month and quarter-over-quarter patterns. Plan for dips before they arrive.
Booking Fill Rate
For appointment and class-based businesses — how full is your schedule?
Inventory Turnover
How fast your stock moves. Slow turnover ties up cash; fast turnover means healthy demand.
Days on Hand
Average number of days items sit before selling. Shorter is almost always better.
Dead Stock %
Percentage of inventory that has not moved in 60+ days. Cash sitting on shelves.
Pour Cost / COGS Variance
Actual usage vs. theoretical usage. The gap between what you should use and what you actually use.
Velocity Score
Speed of sale combined with margin — a composite that identifies your true winners and losers.
How the Waypoint Score works
Your Waypoint Score is a single 0 to 100 number that tells you how your business is performing across every dimension that matters. Here is how we calculate it.
Four independent domains
Finance, Staffing, Programming, and Inventory are each scored separately. A weakness in one area never hides behind strength in another.
Benchmarked against your industry
Each metric is compared to published industry benchmarks. We define a minimum (poor), average (typical), and maximum (top performer) threshold for your business type.
Piecewise interpolation
Your raw metric value is mapped to a 0-100 scale. Below the minimum threshold scores a 0. At the industry average, you score 50. At the top benchmark, you score 100. Values in between are interpolated smoothly.
Direction-aware scoring
Some metrics are "higher is better" (revenue, profit margin). Others are "lower is better" (labor cost %, COGS %). The engine knows the difference and scores accordingly.
Weighted by business type
Domain weights are tuned for your vertical. Finance typically carries the most weight because cash flow is king — but a gym cares more about retention, and a bar cares more about inventory. Weights adjust automatically.
Updated nightly
The Waypoint Score refreshes every night after syncing your latest data. You wake up to a current, accurate picture of your business health every morning.
How Sage generates insights
Sage is not a chatbot that gives generic advice. It reads your actual Waypoint Score, domain scores, and recent trends — then generates specific, actionable recommendations with estimated financial impact.
Every Sage insight includes three things: what to do, why it matters, and the estimated dollar impact. Here are real examples of what Sage might tell a venue operator:
Your labor cost is 38% — 6 points above the 32% benchmark for your venue type. Cutting your Tuesday close shift to 1 bartender saves approximately $680/mo without impacting service during a low-traffic night.
Staffing / Labor Cost %Your top 3 events generate 62% of entertainment revenue. DJ Karma alone drove $4,100 in bar sales last month. Rebooking them bi-weekly instead of monthly could add an estimated $8,200/mo in incremental revenue.
Programming / Event Impact RatingYour pour cost jumped 4 points this month — from 22% to 26%. That gap represents roughly $1,200 in unaccounted product. An inventory audit focused on your top 10 spirits would likely close most of it.
Inventory / COGS VarianceThree clients with a combined lifetime value of $12,400 have not visited in 45+ days. A personal outreach offer — 15% off their next visit — has a 40% win-back rate based on your historical data. Estimated recovery: $1,860.
CRM / Churn PredictorWhere our benchmarks come from
We don't invent numbers. Every benchmark threshold in DashAdvisr is sourced from published, verifiable industry data.
- National Restaurant Association — Annual State of the Industry reports covering revenue, labor, and food cost benchmarks for food and beverage businesses.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) — Wage data, employment costs, and industry-specific labor statistics used to calibrate staffing metrics.
- IBISWorld Industry Reports — Market sizing, cost structures, and profitability benchmarks across 700+ industries including all DashAdvisr verticals.
- Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDD Item 19) — Legally filed unit-level financial data from franchise systems including AUV, COGS %, labor %, and EBITDA margins. Real numbers from real businesses.
- Square and Toast Merchant Data — Published aggregate reports on transaction volumes, average ticket sizes, and seasonal trends from millions of small businesses.
- Homebase Labor Benchmarks — Published workforce analytics covering scheduling efficiency, overtime rates, and turnover across hospitality and retail.
- DashAdvisr Aggregate Data — Anonymized, aggregated performance data from DashAdvisr clients. No individual business data is ever identifiable or shared.
- Academic Research — Peer-reviewed studies on small business performance metrics, survival rates, and operational efficiency published in hospitality and business journals.
Benchmark data is sourced from publicly available reports and industry publications. DashAdvisr does not claim ownership of third-party research data. All benchmark thresholds are estimates based on published industry averages and may not reflect the specific conditions of your market, region, or business. Past performance metrics do not guarantee future results.
What we don't do
Transparency means being honest about limitations, too. Here are the boundaries we set for ourselves.
We don't sell your data. Ever.
Your business data is yours. We don't monetize it, share it with advertisers, or use it for anything other than serving you.
We don't share individual data
No other DashAdvisr client will ever see your numbers. Aggregate benchmarks are fully anonymized and require a minimum pool size.
We keep scores, not receipts
We retain only the aggregated scores and summaries needed to power your dashboard. Raw transaction-level data is kept only as long as needed to calculate your metrics.
We don't guarantee outcomes
Sage gives recommendations, not promises. We show you what the data says and what similar businesses have achieved — execution is on you.
We only access what you connect
DashAdvisr never accesses data beyond what you explicitly authorize through OAuth. Disconnect anytime, and the data stops flowing immediately.
AI doesn't train on your data
Sage uses Anthropic's Claude API, which does not use customer data for model training. Your data is processed in a single request and discarded.
Ready to see your score?
Get my Waypoint Score freeDisclaimer: DashAdvisr provides data-driven insights and recommendations for informational purposes only. Nothing on this page or in our platform constitutes financial, legal, or professional advice. Always consult qualified professionals before making significant business decisions. Estimated savings and ROI projections are based on published FDD Item 19 filings and industry benchmark data, assuming a conservative 1–2% margin improvement. Actual results may vary.