Sage 100 Contractor holds everything. Getting a straight answer out of it is another matter. We build Power BI reporting directly on the Sage database — WIP, margin, aging, cash — all current as of the last refresh and unable to drift from the accounting system. Then we stay on as your analytics partner for everything that comes next.
“…he built a dashboard that took away all my concerns, sleepless nights, and he exceeded my expectations in the process!”
The numbers exist. They are spread across a schema nobody documented, exported into spreadsheets that go stale the moment they're saved, and reconciled by hand once a month if anyone has time. By the time a job's overrun is visible in a report, the money is spent.
It isn’t a people problem. Most construction companies are run by people with decades in the trade — estimators who can price a job from a set of drawings, project managers who can tell a schedule is slipping before anyone says so, owners who built the company one job at a time. What’s usually missing isn’t experience. It’s someone whose job is turning the accounting data into answers, a role most contractors never have the size to justify. So hard-won judgment ends up running on instinct and month-old spreadsheets. That’s the role we fill.
Reporting built on the live database changes the timing. You see the job while it is still running, not at closeout — and the figure on screen is the same figure your Controller sees in Sage.
Sage 100 Contractor stores everything in tables with six-character names and no
published documentation — jobcst, bdglin,
aiafrm, lgtnln, acrinv. Working out what
they mean, how they join, and which columns are running totals rather than period
amounts is most of the work on a project like this.
That work is done. The schema is identical at every Sage 100 Contractor installation, which means your build starts from a working model rather than from nothing.
Cost-to-cost percent complete, earned revenue, estimated cost at completion, over and under billing — job by job.
Reconciled line for line against your Sage 3-1-2 report, including the voided-transaction handling most exports miss.
Pay application tables hold running totals, not period amounts. Summing them multiplies your revenue. This model doesn't.
Aging on real invoice terms rather than assumed ones, with retainage separated out so the picture isn't overstated.
Every bank account identified from the general ledger, including the ones Sage's own bank feed misses.
Labor, material, equipment, subcontract and other, against budget, at whatever level of the cost code structure you use.
Read-only access through an on-premises data gateway. Nothing is copied off your server and nothing is written back.
Every measure, table and assumption written down and handed over. You own everything we build, with nothing locked in a black box.
What the dashboard covers, how it connects (including cloud-hosted Sage), and common questions.
BP Builders asked for one thing: a single-page executive summary dashboard. What they have now is a fully dynamic, multi-page command center for the CEO — executive summary, work-in-progress schedule, job-level cost and margin, operating expense, cash position and aging, with period switching and drill-through across all of it, on a desktop or a phone.
The scope grew because the data kept answering questions nobody had been able to ask. Building that first page surfaced things their existing reporting had no way to show — not unusual findings, and not a reflection on how the company was run. A well-kept accounting system will still hold things nobody has had the tools to go looking for.
Drawn from client work and described in general terms. Every contractor's data is different. What's consistent is that this kind of reporting finds things the monthly close does not — and that most of what it finds is fixable.
Glenn Plante, CEO BP Builders“I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for until I met Kyle. I provided a brief explanation of what I was envisioning and in a couple short weeks he built a dashboard that took away all my concerns, sleepless nights, and he exceeded my expectations in the process! Almost like he knew exactly what I was looking for!
I would recommend him and his company to anyone!”
See a complete working dashboard, built on a sample contractor’s data, in a personal walkthrough.
Every engagement starts small and proves itself before it grows, and every step is handled for you end-to-end: setup, build, publishing, training and ongoing care. No long discovery phase, no six-figure commitment before you've seen anything.
A quick-turnaround diagnostic run directly against your Sage database. Jobs carrying cost with no budget. Jobs past budget and past contract. Receivables and payables terms and aging. Transactions dated outside the period they belong to. Budget baselines that were never recorded.
You get a written findings memo with dollar figures attached. It stands on its own whether or not you ever build a dashboard.
A Power BI model built on your Sage data through a secure on-premises gateway. A fully dynamic, multi-page dashboard that includes: Executive summary with a tied-out profit and loss, work-in-progress schedule, job-level cost against budget, over and under billing, operating expense by category and live cash position.
Published to your Microsoft tenant, refreshed on a schedule, and viewable on both desktop and tablet/phone.
A monthly retainer at one of four tiers, from keeping your reporting healthy to making us your analytics lead. The first keeps the reporting healthy — refresh monitoring, gateway upkeep, fixes when Sage changes underneath the model, and someone to call when a number looks wrong.
The second adds a monthly exception report that flags only what's wrong. The third: Analytics consulting unlocked. Recommendations from the data and leadership questions answered ad hoc, as they arise.
The fourth is our priority tier: first claim on our time, the fastest responses, a weekly cash projection and a quarterly board/lender package.
QuickBooks already has good reports and dashboards. What most small businesses are missing is someone to read them: to explain what changed, find where the money is made and lost, forecast cash and plan for growth. We connect to your QuickBooks Online or Desktop data via read-only access and turn it into clear monthly insights and recommendations. No new software to buy.
A read-only review of your books and a baseline analysis of profitability, margins, cash, receivables and payables. You get a written memo with the top five recommendations and a review meeting.
Three plans, from a monthly insights memo and KPI scorecard to cash forecasting, pricing advice, budgets and growth planning.
One-off work when a big decision comes up: a pricing study, a cash-flow model, an annual budget or a loan package.
What we analyze, how we connect to QuickBooks Online and Desktop, and common questions.
Construction reporting is where we started, not where we stop. Getting at numbers locked inside an operational system and turning them into something a decision-maker can act on applies to any industry and any system. Whatever the data and whatever the question, we handle it end-to-end, so you have one partner for all of it instead of a different vendor for every problem.
An inventory of your systems, data sources and existing reports, with a data quality check. We show how your current tools and data can be leveraged and what new setup, if any, is needed.
You get written findings and a roadmap, including the retainer tier that fits. It stands on its own whether or not you go further.
A monthly analytics retainer at one of three tiers. Essentials keeps existing reporting healthy. Partner makes us your data team: we build the data foundation in the first months, then add reports, forecasting, automation, insights and leadership questions answered ad hoc as you grow. Embedded puts us in the lead of your data function, owning the analytics roadmap with your leadership.
Forecasts, revenue and backlog projection, cost-at-completion modeling, seasonal demand and staffing plans — built on your own history rather than a rule of thumb, and rerun automatically as new data lands.
The workbook everyone depends on and nobody trusts…rebuilt with the formulas documented, the manual steps automated, and the inputs validated so it stops breaking when someone pastes in the wrong column.
The report somebody rebuilds by hand every Monday. Scheduled, refreshed and delivered on its own — to a dashboard, a workbook, or an inbox — so the time goes into reading it instead of assembling it.
Data models, DAX measures, report design and performance tuning. New builds, or fixing an existing model that's slow, wrong, or that nobody left behind any documentation for.
Query development, views and stored procedures, and full documentation of a database nobody has mapped — tables, columns, relationships and what each field actually means in practice.
Pulling two systems into one view, reconciling records that should match and don't, deduplicating a customer or vendor list, and standardizing data that was entered five different ways over ten years.
Deciding what should be measured before deciding how to display it — defining the metric, agreeing what counts, and building it so the number means the same thing to everyone reading it.
A question that needs answering, with a written answer and the working shown. Pricing, profitability by segment, customer concentration, a decision that needs support before it goes to a board.
KBS Data Analytics is based in Esko, Minnesota, and serves contractors/businesses across the Upper Midwest, as well as nationwide. The firm brings senior-level analytics to companies that need answers, not another software subscription.
Our background includes analytics work for some of the largest companies in the country, across insurance, utilities, retail and construction. We bring that enterprise-level rigor to every engagement, scaled to fit the size and pace of your business.
The analyst who scopes your work is the same one who writes the queries, builds the model and explains the numbers to your leadership. No handoffs, no junior analyst learning the business on your budget, and no layer between you and the people who understand your data.
From a single report to a company-wide analytics program, we take care of every piece: data, dashboards, forecasts, spreadsheets and the questions in between.
On Sage 100 Contractor? Start with the assessment: a quick turnaround against your database, a written findings memo, a $3,000 fixed fee. If what it turns up isn't worth more than it cost, we stop there.
Use QuickBooks? Start with the $1,000 QuickBooks Business Review, then pick the advisory plan that fits.
Or, for any analytics need beyond Sage 100 Contractor and QuickBooks, start with a $3,500 data and integration review, then bring us on as your data team: consulting, reporting and analysis that work alongside the staff you already have.
For any system your data lives in. Each tier includes everything in the one before it. Partner and Embedded include building your data foundation in the first months.
| What's included | Essentials Reporting care |
Partner + Growth Analytics consulting unlocked. |
Embedded + Analytics lead Our highest level of service. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keeping it running | |||
| Upkeep of existing dashboards and reports (Power BI, Tableau, Excel) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monthly KPI scorecard | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Data quality checks | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Small enhancements and Excel help | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Someone to call when a number looks wrong | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Growing what you can see | |||
| We become your data team: data foundation built in the first months | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| New reports and dashboards as needs arise | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Forecasting — revenue, demand and staffing | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reporting automation — scheduled, refreshed and delivered | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Microsoft Excel efficiency | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monthly insights review with recommendations | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Leadership questions answered ad hoc, no new Scope of Work (SOW) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Analytics as a function | |||
| We lead your data function: we own the analytics roadmap, with quarterly priorities agreed with leadership | — | — | ✓ |
| Advice on tools, vendors and hires | — | — | ✓ |
| First claim on our time and the fastest responses | — | — | ✓ |
| Data strategy and KPI governance | — | — | ✓ |
| Team training and coaching for your own people (e.g. Excel power users, junior analysts) | — | — | ✓ |
| Quarterly board / investor-ready package | — | — | ✓ |
Fixed monthly fee at every tier. Partner has a 4-month minimum and Embedded an 8-month minimum; after that, cancel or change tiers with 30 days' notice. Essentials is for companies with existing reports; otherwise a one-time setup fee is scoped in the review.
Each tier includes everything in the one before it. Move between them as the need changes — there's no penalty for stepping down a tier or pausing.
| What's included | Tier one Maintenance |
Tier two + Exceptions |
Tier three + Consulting Analytics consulting unlocked. |
Tier four + Priority Our highest level of service. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keeping it running | ||||
| Refresh monitoring — we find out before you do | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Gateway, credential and license upkeep | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Fixes when Sage changes underneath the model | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Small additions — new measures, visuals, roll-ups | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Someone to call when a number looks wrong | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Catching problems early | ||||
| Monthly exception report | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cost with no budget, cost above contract | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Billings with no contract, forward-dated entries | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Budgets changed without a change order | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Receivables aging past recorded terms | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Accounts miscategorized against the P&L | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Deciding what to do about it | ||||
| Business recommendations drawn from the data | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Margin, job-type and bid profitability analysis | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cash position and forward projection | — | — | Monthly | Weekly |
| Help with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Leadership questions answered ad hoc, no new Scope of Work (SOW) | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Priority access | ||||
| First claim on our time and the fastest responses | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Granular, role-specific dashboard page (e.g. superintendent for construction industry clients) | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Quarterly board / lender-ready package (useful for bonding and banking) | — | — | — | ✓ |
Fixed monthly fee at every tier. Cancel or change tiers with 30 days' notice.
Analysis and advice for small businesses on QuickBooks Online or Desktop. No dashboard to build and no new software. Each plan includes everything in the one before it.
| What's included | Insight Monthly insights |
Performance + Review & forecast Analytics consulting unlocked. |
Strategic + Growth planning Our highest level of service. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowing where you stand | |||
| Monthly insights memo: what changed, why, and what to do | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| KPI scorecard: margins, cash runway, collections, growth | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monthly books clean-up flags so the numbers stay accurate | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Questions answered within one business day | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Making better decisions | |||
| Monthly review meeting | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| 13-week cash forecast, updated monthly | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Profitability by customer, product or job | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pricing and margin recommendations | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Help with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Positioning for growth | |||
| Annual budget with monthly budget vs. actual | — | — | ✓ |
| Growth scenarios: hiring, pricing, capacity | — | — | ✓ |
| Quarterly lender or investor-ready package | — | — | ✓ |
| Leadership questions answered ad hoc, no new Scope of Work (SOW) | — | — | ✓ |
| First claim on our time and the fastest responses | — | — | ✓ |
Fixed monthly fee on every plan. No minimum term; move between plans or cancel with 30 days' notice.
