Financial Dashboard
A financial operating layer for firms running on STAR.
Stop rebuilding the same financial view every time the firm needs answers. Financial Dashboard turns STAR data into fast, frozen, navigable views for WIP, net billings, collections, AR, budgets, and historical comparison, so leadership can move from firm-wide performance to client and engagement detail in one place.
Built for STAR • frozen periods • configurable dimensions • budget / CY / PY / PTD / YTD context • firm-to-client-to-engagement navigation
What firms get right away
WIP, net billings, collections, and AR in one operating view
Frozen periods for stable review, with optional daily refresh for open periods
Navigation by firm structure, client hierarchy, and firm-specific dimensions
A direct path from summary to client and engagement detail
The problem is not missing data. It is reporting friction.
Most firms already have the numbers. Getting them into a form the firm can actually use is what costs time.
Too often, review starts with repeated STAR exports, spreadsheet stitching, manual cleanup, and reconciliation across side workbooks. By the time the numbers are ready, too much effort has gone into producing the report and not enough into reading it.
Financial Dashboard removes that setup work. It gives the firm a consistent financial view that is ready when questions arise, so partners, operations leaders, finance teams, and firm leadership can spend their time reviewing performance instead of assembling it.
What changes in practice
Less manual STAR report assembly
Fewer side spreadsheets and one-off workbooks
Faster review across WIP, net billings, collections, AR, and budgets
One set of numbers across partners, managers, operations, and leadership
A cleaner path from summary to underlying detail
Historical periods preserved as they were
Built on your practice management data.
Shaped around how your firm is organized and how your leaders review the business.
Financial Dashboard starts with the financial data already coming out of STAR and turns it into a fast, frozen reporting environment. STAR remains the system of record. Financial Dashboard becomes the place where the firm reviews, compares, and works through the numbers.
It is built first for firms using STAR, while also allowing financial data from systems such as CCH ProSystem fx Practice Management and IRIS Practice Engine to be incorporated when the underlying data is available.
Configured to reflect your firm, not force your firm into a template
Use standard STAR dimensions, client hierarchies, and firm-specific custom fields in the navigation model, so the way you review performance matches the way your business actually runs.
Common navigation lenses
Industry, office, service line, entity, or franchise
Employee roles such as partner, manager, and supervisor
Parent and child client hierarchy
Standard STAR dimensions
Firm-specific custom STAR fields
See the core financial picture in one place
Financial Dashboard brings together the views firms return to constantly: WIP, net billings, collections, and AR.
Instead of pulling multiple STAR reports just to get to a starting point, the firm works from one environment where the core financial views are already aligned and ready for review.
Net Billings and Collections can also be reviewed with budget, current-year, prior-year, period-to-date, and year-to-date context for the selected period.
Core operating views
WIP
Net Billings
Collections
AR
Context stays in the same view
Move between actual performance, targets, prior-year context, and period-based comparison without jumping across separate reports.
Move from firm-level signal to client and engagement detail
Financial Dashboard is not a static dashboard. It is a working environment designed to follow the question as it narrows.
Start at the firm level, choose the lens that matters, and move directly into the part of the business that needs attention. At broader levels, the lower pane can show ranked views such as top clients by WIP, net billings, collections, or AR.
As the review becomes more specific, the view shifts naturally from ranked summaries into detail grids such as Client Folder Details, then into child-client and engagement or project records.
How the progression works
Start with the firm-wide picture
Choose the hierarchy or role perspective
See ranked views where ranking helps
Shift into detail when detail becomes the better view
Move into child-client and engagement or project records
Stay inside the same reporting environment throughout
Fast enough to use in the meeting.
Stable enough to trust next quarter and next year.
Financial Dashboard is built on pre-compiled views, so movement through the hierarchy feels immediate. That speed matters because a financial review tool should help the conversation move, not slow it down.
Historical review matters just as much. Closed periods can remain frozen, so the firm can go back and see what the numbers were at that time. Open periods can follow a live-view model with prior-day daily refreshes, with hourly generation available when needed.
How the refresh model works
Pre-compiled views for fast navigation
Closed periods remain frozen
Open periods can refresh daily using prior-day data
Hourly generation is available where it makes sense
Many firms prefer daily frozen review for consistency
Bring more financial reporting into one operating environment over time
Financial Dashboard is not limited to standard STAR views. The lower reporting area can support custom panels that bring additional reporting into the same review flow.
That makes it possible to compare outside data sources, such as ADP, against STAR measures like net billings while keeping the same period structure and navigation model.
Over time, the dashboard can become the place where firms stop stitching disconnected workbooks together and start reviewing more of their financial reporting in one historically preserved environment.
What can expand over time
Third-party reporting panels
ADP and similar external data sources
Comparisons against STAR measures such as net billings
Additional lower-pane analytical views
More reporting needs inside one preserved environment
Why this matters
Fewer disconnected workbooks
Less repeated spreadsheet assembly
More reporting inside one review flow
Shared periods and historical consistency
A shorter path from reporting to action
What makes it operationally useful
Financial Dashboard is not simply easier to look at than manual STAR reporting. It is more usable when the firm is trying to make decisions.
It gives the firm one place to review the numbers, move through the business by the structure that matters, preserve historical periods, compare targets and performance, and follow questions all the way into the underlying detail.
That is why it works day to day for partners, managers, operations leaders, finance teams, and firm leadership. It reduces the distance between seeing the issue and doing something about it.
Removes repeated reporting work
Spend less time exporting, stitching together, and reconciling STAR reports by hand.
Useful in day-to-day firm operations
Built for partners, managers, operations, finance, and leadership, not only for periodic executive review.
Keeps targets and performance together
Review budget, current year, prior year, PTD, and YTD context in the same flow as actual performance.
Preserves history credibly
Frozen periods keep historical analysis stable even when the firm’s structure changes later.
Follows the firm’s actual structure
Use standard dimensions, custom fields, and firm-specific hierarchies that reflect how your firm operates.
Turns review into follow-through
Move from firm-level rollups into ranked views, client detail, and engagement or project records without rebuilding the path manually.