An owner’s dashboard for a made-to-order business

March can be the store’s best written-sales month and April its hardest cash month, all from the same sofas. The factory balance has gone out. The furniture is on the water. Import and freight bills arrive before the customers’ final balances. A sales-only dashboard makes the sequence difficult to read.

Build the owner’s view around three horizons: written, in flight, and delivered. Each answers a different question. Together, they show whether the store is creating demand, carrying its commitments safely, and earning enough from the furniture that reaches customers.

Give each horizon its own meaning

Written sales measure customer orders secured during the period. In-flight measures explain the work and commitments between agreement and handover. Delivered results show what completed sales earned under the store’s accounting and cost definitions.

Keep those meanings in the headings. “Sales” on its own is too vague when one report means placed orders and another means recognized revenue. A customer deposit is a cash receipt with an outstanding obligation attached; it does not make the whole order a completed sale.

Treat this as a dashboard design you assemble from the views described below. Some measures are ready-made reports; others require an export, a list review, or a calculation alongside the books. Make that origin visible so nobody mistakes a manually assembled forecast for a live app tile.

Read one order across the cash timeline

A worked example shows why the horizons should remain separate. Say an imported sofa sells for $6,000, with a $3,000 factory price, a $3,000 customer deposit, and a $3,000 balance collected at delivery. The vendor takes $900 at ordering and $2,100 before shipment. Assume a $750 import charge and $375 in allocated freight and related charges; these are scenario costs, not a tariff quote.

The order needs $1,125 of funding before the last payment arrives. That shortfall exists even though the customer paid half at the start. The final $1,875 is before the store’s operating expenses and any costs excluded from this example.

The factory-only margin appears to be 50%: $3,000 divided by $6,000. Landed cost is $4,125, so the corresponding gross margin is $1,875 divided by $6,000, or 31.25%, rounded to 31.3%. Both calculations use the same selling price; the second includes more of what the store spent acquiring the piece.

The written horizon captures the sale at the beginning. The in-flight horizon shows the vendor commitment and funding gap. The delivered horizon brings the completed sale and its cost together. The week-by-week custom-order cash-flow guide develops this timeline and the payment terms that change it.

Use the written horizon to find the next selling decision

Start with quotes created, the progress of those quotes into orders, average order value, and written business by salesperson. Each measure should lead to a question about actual appointments or quotes.

Quote counts show activity, but the mix matters. A quick fabric comparison and a complete home furnishing project are both quotes. Read the value and the customer’s decision alongside the count. Otherwise, the team can appear busier simply because it creates more small records.

Quote conversion also needs a defined group. Quotes created during a selected period can continue becoming orders afterward. A report showing how many have been placed so far gives that group time to mature. Dividing all orders placed this week by all quotes created this week answers a different question because the orders may come from older quotes.

Average order value helps explain changes in the total. A showroom selling more dining chairs can have a lower average order than one selling more sectionals, without either team doing a worse job. Review the categories and the reason customers came in before choosing a coaching response.

OrderPilot’s Sales performance report supplies the quote and order view, including salesperson detail and CSV export. Floor close rate needs a consistently counted traffic denominator as well; use the furniture-store close-rate guide to define shopping opportunities.

Use the in-flight horizon to expose stalled commitments

Open work deserves its own place on the owner’s page because a strong written month can hide orders that have not advanced. Begin with signed orders that still need purchasing, then examine the remaining vendor commitments and goods already received but not handed over.

An unpurchased signed order needs a reason. The fabric may be awaiting confirmation, the order may need an authorized review, or the buyer may be waiting to meet a vendor minimum. Put the reason and responsible colleague next to the record. A count without those details cannot tell the owner whether to intervene.

Group expected receipts by week in the working forecast, using the latest vendor information. Keep the distinction between a requested date and an acknowledged date. A PO expected to arrive later also changes when the customer can be scheduled and when the final balance is likely to be collected.

Received-not-delivered work needs another review. A complete dining set awaiting a customer appointment is different from a table waiting for its backordered chairs. Identify the available units, the missing units, any damage, and the next customer contact. The warehouse has enough furniture in it without storing an unresolved question beside every carton.

Record cancellations after purchasing separately from quotes that never converted. The former can leave a vendor obligation, stock to resell, or a refund to settle. Knowing when the commitment arose makes the next buying and selling discussion more useful.

Define deposit coverage before judging the ratio

A deposit coverage ratio can help owners compare deposits attached to open customer orders with the remaining vendor commitments needed to complete those orders. Define both sides on the same group of orders and at the same date.

For this working measure, divide the customer-deposit liability associated with the open-order group by its unpaid vendor commitments. Keep freight, duty, and other expected payments beside it when they are outside that denominator. A ratio based only on merchandise POs can look adequate while the arrival costs remain unfunded.

Say the example order group has $60,000 of customer deposits and $50,000 of unpaid vendor commitments. Coverage is 1.2 times. If another $15,000 in freight and import costs is due before customers pay, the ratio has not demonstrated that the store has enough cash. The calendar and the bank position still matter.

There is no universal healthy ratio established by the sources for this dashboard. A store with prepaid imports needs a different cash cushion from one whose domestic vendors are paid after customer delivery. Test the forecast against delays, partial deliveries, and slower balance collection instead of adopting an unsupported target.

The deposit liability also is not the bank balance. Money already spent can remain owed through an uncompleted customer order. Reconcile the order-level deposits to accounting, then compare the actual available cash with the dated outflows. The customer-deposit bookkeeping guide explains that distinction.

Use the delivered horizon to review the result

Review completed orders using net selling value and the cost definition you intend to manage. Factory cost is useful during quoting; landed cost tells you more once receiving and acquisition charges are recorded. Identify estimates that remain open before presenting the margin as settled.

Look at the individual order before rolling results up by vendor or category. A discounted table, an unusually expensive delivery, or an extra freight charge can explain a result that the monthly average conceals. The margin-by-order guide shows how to follow those differences.

Keep stock measures internally consistent. Inventory turns use stock cost of goods sold divided by average stock inventory at cost. GMROI uses stock gross-margin dollars divided by that same kind of inventory investment. Using special-order sales in the numerator while leaving their inventory out of the denominator makes the stock program look more productive than it is.

Use GMROI by vendor and inventory turns for a mixed business together. A floor sample can support special-order selling, but the owner should assess that contribution explicitly rather than hide it inside a stock-turn calculation.

Track elapsed time from signature to completed delivery for comparable orders. A single lamp collected from stock should not be treated as a production-speed benchmark for a made-to-order sectional. For split deliveries, retain the unit dates and define whether the measure ends at the first or final handover.

Put published margins in their proper context

Historical benchmarks help frame questions, but they need their date, population, and cost definition attached. A figure from a managed peer group is not automatically the industry average.

Home Furnishings Business’s 2018 report on 2017 participants reports gross profit of 48.7% of revenue and net income after interest and taxes of 3.4%. Its top-quartile groups reached about 51% gross profit, with an exception in one size band. The participants used FurnitureCore’s subscription performance application; the report says they do not represent the entire industry.

For another perspective, a public furniture retailer reported 60.7% gross margin for fiscal 2023. Its annual filing explains that much occupancy and home-delivery expense sits in operating expenses, limiting comparability with businesses that classify those costs differently.

A March 2024 Business of Home article quotes an anonymous executive placing independent-store gross margins “in the 40s.” That is an informed person’s account, not a published sample with a known denominator.

Use these figures to ask what your own margin includes and what it must cover. The example’s movement from 50% factory-only margin to 31.3% landed margin is a more immediate management question than whether the store matches a chain’s headline percentage. The furniture gross-margin benchmark guide separates those comparisons.

Find the written-sales views in OrderPilot

Analytics value tiles provide a quick view of quote and order values over the available 7D, 30D, and 90D periods. Use the same period consistently during a review, and note when you change it to investigate a longer pattern. Sales performance adds quotes created and placed so far, orders, reported revenue, average order, and salesperson detail. The report’s order-based revenue measure supports operational sales review; it should not silently replace recognized revenue from the books. Open the underlying quotes when a result changes. If quote creation is healthy but conversion is slowing, read the outstanding decisions and follow-up. If order value rises while the number of orders falls, examine the product and project mix before changing staffing or targets.

Keep the reviewed period and report definition with any exported comparison. That small habit prevents a CSV of placed orders from later being labeled delivered revenue in a presentation.

Find the costs and the work still waiting

Cost-permitted staff can use the order’s Cost of this order view and Analytics › Profit to examine item profit, including freight shown as actual or estimated. Profit deducts commission and groups orders by placement period; use the underlying completed-order records for a delivered review. Grouping by vendor, category, or store helps locate a pattern, while the individual order explains it. The PO list’s Needs cost review tab provides a practical follow-up queue. Open estimated or unresolved costs should have an owner and an expected answer. A margin review is more useful when it finishes with the freight invoice someone needs to obtain. Home holds record tables, recent work, and follow-ups. Status tabs with live counts help staff move from the overview into the relevant quotes, orders, or purchases. The enabled Review queue collects decisions awaiting authorized review, while Awaiting pickup helps identify goods still waiting for handover. On Professional, Analytics › Warranty supplies another view of claim costs, vendor recovery, and resolution. Read those measures alongside the original products and vendors so a good initial margin is not considered in isolation from later service work.

Keep accounting beside the operational reports

Accounting supplies the bank position, profit-and-loss statement, payroll, and customer-deposit liability. Those belong beside the operational reports because they answer questions about the business as a whole.

The QuickBooks Online connection carries OrderPilot’s purchasing and stock-cost work: POs, bills created from receipts, vendor payments and deposits, corrections, and cost-of-goods entries. The store’s Shopify sales-accounting process handles the sales and customer-deposit side. Agree which process owns each posting so the same transaction does not enter twice.

The QuickBooks setup guide maps that division. Use the accounting reconciliation to establish the financial totals, and OrderPilot’s linked purchasing and order records to investigate the operational detail behind them.

For recognized revenue, follow the store’s accounting policy for when control transfers, commonly at delivery or collection in a straightforward furniture sale. Writing the order and placing its PO are separate operational milestones. The ASC 606 special-order guide covers the cases that need closer accounting judgment.

Give each person a useful view

A sales manager can review selling activity without receiving cost and profit access. Configure record and location scope, then grant the reporting rights the role needs. Cost and the permission to view all commission and profit are separate considerations; review the actual role before sharing a profit view.

Salespeople can begin with their own work on Home and use permitted salesperson reporting for coaching. Operations leads need the queues that show blocked purchasing, receiving, and handover. The owner connects these operational views with accounting and the cash forecast.

Sidekick can help with quick lookups, such as finding the order linked to a PO or locating work awaiting review. Use the Sidekick question guide for practical prompts, then inspect the resulting record before making a decision.

Compare showrooms on the same basis

Fair comparison starts with the same period, event date, location definition, and cost treatment. Decide whether the sale belongs to the selling location, receiving location, or fulfillment location for the measure being reviewed.

Separate differences in opportunity from differences in execution. A new showroom, a trade-heavy location, and a store with substantial stock sales can produce different order values and conversion patterns. Compare similar quote groups and product mixes before concluding that one team is stronger.

Use the comparison to identify a transferable practice. A showroom with fewer unresolved quote questions may have a useful follow-up habit. A location with fewer costing exceptions may have a clearer receiving handoff. The useful output is a practice another team can adopt, with enough context to make it fit.

Keep a short review rhythm and a one-page view

If you have five minutes, look at the lowest projected cash balance in the near-term forecast, the value of orders blocked before their next commitment or handover, and the landed margin on recently completed orders with costs settled. Those measures cover funding, execution, and the result. Written sales can then explain what is entering the process.

Use the Monday review to assign the immediate actions. At month-end, reconcile deposits, close cost exceptions, and review margin by order. Quarterly, revisit stock GMROI, vendor performance, and the assumptions behind the open-to-buy plan.

Keep the page short enough to use, with links back to the records. The detail belongs one step away. Start the routine with the owner’s Monday review, and let each number earn its space by helping someone make a decision.

Sources

1. Annual report for the year ended December 31, 2023 — Haverty Furniture Companies, SEC Form 10-K, fiscal 2023.
2. Fourth-quarter and full-year 2023 operating results — Haverty Furniture Companies, February 21, 2024.
3. Retail Metrics for Furniture Retailing — Home Furnishings Business, June 14, 2018; 2017 participant data.
4. Are furniture stores dying, or just changing? — Fred Nicolaus, Business of Home, March 20, 2024.