Struggling with scattered data, Raven Baele, Director of Finance at Austin and Kat, turned to Databox to simplify performance tracking. The result was an impressive increase in net sales and valuable time savings.
For companies with multiple revenue models, reporting on the ‘big picture’ becomes harder and more complicated. That’s the situation Raven Baele, Director of Finance at Austin and Kat, found himself in. With both a B2B wholesale and DTC wing of the business, Austin and Kat is a CBD pet company that offers a range of pet health supplements – dog treats, tinctures, oils, and more.
To better understand their performance, the Austin and Kat team attempted to centralize their data using Google Sheets. Raven explains, “Our chief of staff would gather data from every platform, arrange it the way we wanted, and then create a massive document with all of the KPIs.”
While this approach helped them track performance from one place, it also brought about a few challenges. According to Raven, “It was very number-heavy and there weren’t many charts. The main thing is that it was taking several hours a week to update the document… And if the chief of staff (who was getting the data beforehand) was away, we just didn’t get any numbers.”
Without a faster way to look at current data, the team was also stuck analyzing past performance, missing out on the opportunity to react to changes in their financial performance when it mattered most. “If you give somebody finance for a month ago, nobody cares. That was a month ago. You want to know, ‘what’s happening now?’”
When Raven’s boss decided enough was enough, he started looking for a solution to consolidate their data and offer real-time insights.
Juggling finances and IT responsibilities, Raven began exploring the possibilities with Databox. “I figured out how to bring all our systems together, using tools like the API to connect systems that didn’t natively integrate with Databox… Initially, I was just playing around. It integrated well with Shopify, so I spent time playing around with Shopify and Google Search Console,” he explains.
After the initial setup, Raven focused on building a KPI dashboard to make it easy for everyone to track key metrics like revenue. Raven explains, “Really front and center is our revenue. We want to know if we’re making enough money and hitting our goals and targets. Ideally, we wanted to see that on a day-to-day basis so we can react early.”
Since revenue numbers were spread across multiple systems, Raven created a calculation in Databox to combine the data from Shopify and Pipedrive. “We had to get the data, do some calculations, and we ended up with a total revenue figure. So we did a calculation to say new Pipedrive revenue, plus Shopify revenue equals total revenue for the company,” he explains.
Once ready, Raven embedded the dashboard into ClickUp, the team’s management software. He notes, “Everybody in the company can go into ClickUp, click on the KPIs dashboard, and see all of our metrics. Previously, that was all inside our MRP system, which was like 50 bucks a month for each person to have a login. So we limited logins. With Databox, everyone has access to the wide thing.”
To stay on top of performance, Raven adopted a proactive approach to data monitoring. He explains, “I have alerts set up, so I get daily emails telling me how we are doing and whenever we’re on target to hit our goals or not.”
Raven also introduced Databox dashboards into weekly meetings, helping improve discussions around goals and performance. He shares, “We do weekly meetings with the team. The goal is to keep them updated, keep them engaged, and give positive feedback.”
According to Raven, the impact of implementing Databox has been substantial, despite only using the tool for a matter of months. In just a short amount of time, the team has managed to save 10-15 hours per week on reporting. “We definitely spend less time accessing data. As a company, we save 10-15 hours a week minimum. And these aren’t cheap hours – people who get paid a lot of money spending 10,15 hours a week insn’t efficient.”
On top of that, Austin and Kat have experienced an impressive 21% growth in net sales. Raven sees Databox as more than a cost-saving tool; it’s a tool that will contribute to their ongoing revenue growth. He elaborates, “If we want to get our shipping costs down, we can see if our shipping cost is going up or down, and we can react. This can save us money on the costs with the sales team… I think long-term, it will have both cost-saving effects and help us push our revenue higher.”