CatWorks gained practical BI to drive growth

CatWorks is based in Melbourne, on Australia’s Mornington Peninsula, where their team of qualified carpenters create bespoke, outdoor enclosures for cats and other fur babies. We spoke to Owner, Timothy Delvechio, about how they use Wink to get a clear, accurate picture of their business numbers to make better decisions.

Before Wink Reports

Previously, CatWorks used Excel with the standard reporting tool from ServiceM8. Their challenge was the lack of depth in the reporting. Tim had to rely on a bit of guesswork about what the real numbers were, and hope the team would account correctly for all their sales.

In addition to ServiceM8, they also use Xero, which meant there was plenty of data to process and share within their team to discover the insights that would improve their internal communications on inventory, workflow, and productivity.

Asked about the risks they faced if they didn’t use Wink, Tim called out the difference between estimating what was happening versus knowing what the actual sales were.

“Before we used Wink, we would guesstimate, but now we know the real numbers.” - Timothy Delvechio

How Wink helped

CatWorks were very targeted in how they implemented Wink reports and dashboards to enhance their view of the business.

They customized templates with specific filters to create profit reports per job, per lead source, and per suburb.

Their first dashboard was Wink’s ServiceM8 Business Dashboard template, which they adapted to display data on the number of jobs and profit by suburb.

This report provides a clear view of all the materials needed for scheduled jobs, together with their corresponding unit of measure and suppliers, which is a valuable tool to help CatWorks improve their stock management.

The fact that they were able to connect their data from both ServiceM8 and Xero in Wink to create detailed, merged reports, gave them the visibility, accuracy and depth of information they needed. This made it possible for CatWorks to turn their ServiceM8 data into business intelligence that boosted their efficiency and drove better-informed decisions.

Why CatWorks recommends Wink

We asked Tim what sort of businesses might also benefit from using Wink Reports for deeper insights into their data than their software allows.

“Every business that uses ServiceM8! Full stop.” - Timothy Delvechio

To explain his recommendation, Tim walked us through how CatWorks used Wink to improve:

By providing a centralized data management tool, Wink delivered what ServiceM8 lacked in reporting functionality. Every month, their team saved two hours and avoided human errors in the process of gathering and organizing data.

Wink’s expanded reporting facilitated the growth of CatWorks business, helping them achieve a 20% increase in sales revenue.

The ability to merge multiple reports made life a lot easier for the CatWorks team. They combined nine different reports from ServiceM8 and Xero to create one ideal Wink performance report.

Growth in the business helped CatWorks earn back their total annual Wink subscription cost 84 times in one year.

One of their most pressing concerns was preventing overstocking and understocking of materials, which can lead to waste or delays in production. They used Wink to better manage stock levels by tracking the materials that were quoted and comparing these with what was actually used. Where they identified discrepancies, they used this information to adjust the ordering processes, reducing wastage and improving the flow of work.

So, does the CatWorks team see Wink as their reporting tool for the long-haul?

“Yes, with the reports I have created, I can scale the business and increase growth and profitability.” - Timothy Delvechio

Made for business owners

Wink Reports unlocks the business intelligence in ServiceM8 and Xero data, to give business owners the facts they need to guide good decision-making. For CatWorks, their go-to Wink features are (1) merging data sources, which provides so much insight in one report, (2) scheduled reports, which facilitate better communication across their teams, and (3) the ready-made software integrations, which connect their most important data sources to Wink.

Tim says it’s incredible just being able to get data from ServiceM8 and Xero into one, easy-to-read report, and that everything beyond that is “absolute icing on the cake.”

If you’re keen to unleash the power of your business data, take advantage of our 30-day free trial and put Wink Reports to work for you.

How has data helped you move your business forward? Leave a comment to share your insights with other business owners.