The first week of every month
You own three hearing clinic branches, perhaps with a van for home visits. At the start of each month, someone exports the diary, a sales report, a returns list and figures from Xero, then spends a day or two building a spreadsheet. By the time it is ready, the month is a week old. And there is always a debate about whether the numbers are right.
Each branch also counts things slightly differently. One counts a review as a test. Another includes the van. A dispenser who covers two branches appears twice.
Why reporting is so painful
- The figures come from several systems that do not talk to each other.
- Definitions differ: what counts as a test, a fitting, a return, an active patient.
- Staff who work across branches are counted in different ways.
- Returns are recorded weeks after the sale, so monthly figures change after the fact.
- The spreadsheet is rebuilt by hand, so errors creep in and are hard to find.
What it costs to report this way
A day or more each month of senior time. Decisions made on figures that are late and disputed. Dispensers who do not see their own numbers until they are old news. And problems, such as a branch with rising returns or empty diary slots, noticed weeks after they started.
| Measure | Where it comes from | Definition to agree |
|---|---|---|
| Diary use | Diary | Booked time over available time, by room or clinician |
| Assessments | Practice system | Which appointment types count |
| Fittings | Practice system or Noah | When a fitting is counted, and returns deducted |
| Reviews completed | Diary | Against those due |
| Income | Accounts package | By branch, net of returns |
How we build the dashboard
- We agree definitions with you first, written down, so everyone reads the same numbers the same way.
- Data is pulled automatically each night from your diary and practice management system, Noah where it is useful, and your accounts package such as Xero.
- Staff who work across branches are attributed by where the appointment took place.
- Returns are linked back to the original sale, so figures update correctly when a pair comes back.
- The dashboard shows each branch and dispenser, with the ability to drill into any number to see the appointments behind it.
- Dispensers can see their own figures, and the owner sees everything. Access follows your choices.
- A short weekly summary is emailed to the owner, with any measure moving outside the range you set highlighted.
We build it in a tool such as Power BI or Looker Studio, or as a small web dashboard, depending on what you already use.
Hearing care has a long tail between the first appointment and the final outcome. A test this month may become a fitting next month and a return the month after. The dashboard shows figures by the date each event happened and, where useful, follows a group of patients from their first test, so a branch is not judged on a month that simply has not finished yet.
Home visit work and occupational testing can sit in their own lines, because their diaries and income behave differently from a high street clinic.
What changes once it runs
Nobody builds a spreadsheet at month end. Branch managers and dispensers see their numbers as they go. Disagreements about definitions are settled once. Problems show up in days, not weeks. The owner spends time deciding what to do about the numbers, rather than producing them.
Does this sound like your month end?
- Monthly reports are built by exporting and pasting.
- Branches count tests, fittings or returns differently.
- Dispensers see their own numbers late, or not at all.
- Returns change last month's figures and nobody updates them.
- You find out about a problem at a branch weeks after it started.