The financial operating layer for firms using STAR.

Financial Dashboard takes the financial data firms already have in STAR and turns it into a working reporting environment built for day-to-day use.

Instead of exporting reports, stitching spreadsheets, cleaning them up, reconciling mismatches, and rebuilding the same views again next week or next month, the firm gets one place to review the numbers with speed and confidence.

That difference is structural, not cosmetic. The financial picture, the comparison context, the period model, the reporting lens, and the path to detail stay in the same environment instead of being scattered across separate outputs.

Built primarily for firms using STAR, Financial Dashboard can also incorporate starting financial data from other practice management systems when needed. But STAR is the center of gravity, and that shows in how the product works.

What makes it different

The numbers are already in STAR. The drag begins after that: repeated exports, spreadsheet stitching, manual cleanup, side-by-side reconciliation, and the quiet tax of rebuilding the same reporting logic over and over.

By the time the numbers are ready, too much effort has gone into preparing them and not enough into reviewing them. Different stakeholders end up working from different report versions and defending different answers before the real conversation can even begin.

Financial Dashboard removes that friction. It gives the firm one shared financial environment, with one consistent set of numbers, so review can start earlier and move faster.

What that fixes in practice

At the top of the dashboard are the financial views firms repeatedly need: WIP, Net Billings, Collections, and AR.

Net Billings and Collections also carry the comparison context that makes review usable in practice: Budget, Current Year, Previous Year, period-to-date, and year-to-date through the selected period. Current performance, historical performance, and plan context can be read in one place instead of being reconstructed across separate reports.

The period picker is part of the product, not a utility control. It surfaces period history, status, and summary values, so users can move between a frozen close and the current open period without having to re-establish the frame each time the conversation shifts.

Core financial views

Context stays attached to the number

Move between actual performance, target, prior-year context, period-to-date, and year-to-date through the selected period without jumping across separate reports.

The layout gives the firm real control over the slice of the business being reviewed. Users choose a period, choose the tree navigation type, move through the hierarchy, and switch the role perspective when responsibility is the better lens.

As those choices change, the top and bottom sections recast around them. The same underlying numbers can be viewed by Industry Code, Service Line, Office, Entity, Franchise, Employee, or a role perspective such as Job Partner.

This is what makes the product feel like a working financial environment. The left-side controls define the slice. The top row holds the core financial picture. The lower pane changes as the question moves deeper into the business.

Common operating lenses

Financial Dashboard is not limited to canned STAR views. It supports standard STAR dimensions, custom STAR fields, client-specific custom fields, and firm-specific hierarchies.

If a field matters to how the firm organizes or reviews the business, it can be part of the navigation model. That includes custom fields already built into a firm’s STAR environment.

This matters in practice. Operational stakeholders are not being asked to tolerate an approximation of their structure. They can review the business through the structure they already use to manage it.

Configuration can reflect

Users can move from the firm view into a selected hierarchy, through the ownership and operational layers that matter, into Parent Client, Child Client, and then into the underlying engagement, job, or project detail. The numbers stay close to the work that produced them.

That progression is reflected in the lower reporting area. At broader levels, the lower pane can show ranked views such as Top 10 Clients by WIP, Net Billings, Collections, or AR. It can also hold other reporting a firm may currently prepare manually outside STAR, so those views can live inside the same operating layer instead of beside it.

At more specific levels, the pane shifts into detail views such as Client Folder Details, parent-client detail, child-client detail, and the actual engagement or job records underneath. When the user is already at Parent Client, a Top 10 view no longer makes sense. The product does not force it anyway.

How the progression works

Financial Dashboard is fast because its views are pre-compiled. The numbers have already been calculated for the selected period and hierarchy, so users are not waiting for reports to rebuild in the middle of review. Navigation feels immediate. Conversations keep moving.

That speed matters because the product is meant to be used while the question is still live, not after the moment has passed.

The period model matters just as much. The selector is more than a date dropdown; it is a compact historical review model. When expanded, it shows available periods grouped by year and month, with status and summary information in the picker itself.

Closed periods can remain frozen, so the firm can return to exactly what the numbers were at that time, even if ownership changes, staffing shifts, offices move, or reporting structures evolve later. Open periods can run as live views, typically refreshed daily from prior-day data and, where needed, generated hourly.

Most firms prefer daily frozen refreshes for open periods because they strike the right balance: current enough to manage from, stable enough to trust.

How the refresh model works

Financial Dashboard is a viewing environment, but it is also a practical reporting workspace. Export options for jobs or engagements, along with custom exports, stay attached to the place where the number is being reviewed instead of forcing a separate reporting cycle first.

The lower reporting area is not limited to standard STAR-only content. It can host custom panels that bring additional reporting into the same environment, including reporting a firm may currently prepare manually and outside data aligned against STAR measures such as Net Billings.

ADP is a good proof point, not the headline. The headline is that over time the dashboard can become the place where more of the firm’s financial reporting lives, instead of leaving it scattered across spreadsheets, side workbooks, one-off files, and disconnected ad hoc reports.

What can expand over time

Financial Dashboard is built for the people responsible for a client, a group of clients, a book of business, an office, a region, a business unit, a service area, or the firm as a whole.

Partners and managers can review the part of the business they own and follow questions into detail. Operations and practice management teams can read performance through the structures that matter operationally. Finance, billing, and collections teams can work from aligned financial views instead of manually rebuilt reporting.

Technical stakeholders can also see the value in the configurability, period generation model, and the ability to bring broader reporting into one environment. That breadth matters because it reflects the product honestly. Financial Dashboard is not only a leadership meeting tool. It is part of how the firm works.

Less time goes into gathering reports, reconciling versions, and debating whether the numbers are right. More time goes into reviewing performance, understanding exceptions, and following issues to the work underneath them.

Budget and actuals live in the same view. Summary and detail live in the same environment. Historical periods stay intact. The structure matches the firm instead of flattening it.

That is why Financial Dashboard is more than a dashboard, and more than a reporting convenience. It shortens the distance between reporting and review, between review and understanding, and between understanding and action.

What executive review gets back

Walk through the core views, the period model, the hierarchy options, the lower-pane behavior, the export paths, and the broader reporting possibilities that matter to your firm.

We can map it to the dimensions, comparisons, and detail paths your team already uses so you can see what a faster, frozen, navigable financial operating layer would look like in practice.