KPI dashboard examples by function: which numbers really matter?

Search for "KPI dashboard examples" and you mostly get pictures of charts — but not the answer to the real question: which numbers belong on it? That depends on who is looking. A director steers by different numbers than a sales manager, and a finance view is something other than an e-commerce cockpit. In this article we give concrete example KPIs per function, explain how to choose the right ones and name the mistakes we come across most often. Prefer to see straight away what such a dashboard looks like? Take a look at the live demo with eight dashboards.

What is a KPI dashboard — and what is it not?

A KPI dashboard is one screen that refreshes automatically and, in a few seconds, tells you how you are doing on the numbers you steer by. KPI stands for key performance indicator: a number that is tied to a goal and that has an action attached to it if it heads the wrong way.

That little word key is immediately the most important distinction. Not every number you can measure is a KPI. Page views, number of emails sent, likes — they are metrics, not steering numbers. The test is simple: does anything about your actions change when this number changes? If not, it does not belong on the dashboard.

A KPI dashboard is therefore not a dumping ground for everything measurable, nor a weekly, manually filled PowerPoint. It is a small, sharply chosen set of numbers that comes live out of your systems — accounting, CRM, webshop, planning — without anyone cutting and pasting on a Monday morning.

KPI dashboard examples by function

Below are five concrete examples, by role. See them as a starting point, not a template: the right set depends on your business model and on the decisions you have to make this month.

1. Leadership dashboard: the overview

Leadership does not want detail, but the whole playing field at a glance: is enough coming in, is enough left over and are we on schedule?

• Revenue versus target — this month and cumulative this year, set against budget
• Gross margin — because revenue without margin is revenue for show
• Cash position and cash flow forecast — can we keep going over the coming months?
• Order book or pipeline value — how full is the coming period?
• Revenue per customer group or service — where is the growth, where the decline?

2. Sales dashboard: the pipeline

Sales steers by the funnel: what comes in, what falls out and how fast it moves. A good sales dashboard shows where in the funnel it stalls — not just what comes out at the bottom.

• New leads per period — and which channel they come from
• Conversion per funnel stage — from lead to conversation, from quote to deal
• Pipeline value per stage — weighted by likelihood, not just added up
• Average deal size and lead time — is the work getting bigger or slower?
• Win rate — quotes won as a percentage of the total

3. Operations dashboard: the delivery

Operations is about keeping promises: delivering on time, without rework, with the people and resources you have.

• Lead time per order or project — from intake to delivery
• Delivery reliability — percentage delivered or completed on time
• Utilisation rate — of people, machines or vehicles
• Error rate or rework — what has to be redone, and why?
• Open tasks or tickets — including how long they have been open

4. Finance dashboard: the cash flows

Finance wants to know not only what has happened, but above all what is coming. Most surprises are not in the revenue, but in working capital.

• Revenue and costs versus budget — per month, with the variance included
• Gross margin per product or service — where do you really make money?
• Days sales outstanding (DSO) — how long is your money sitting with customers?
• Outstanding invoices — overdue and nearly due, with amounts
• Cash flow forecast — expected incoming and outgoing flows over the coming months

5. E-commerce dashboard: the shop

A webshop produces more data than any other channel — which is exactly why choosing sharply matters there. Revenue alone says little if returns and advertising costs eat up the margin.

• Revenue per channel — webshop, marketplaces, physical; today and this month
• Conversion rate and average order value — the two dials behind every revenue line
• Return rate — per category, because that is often where the margin leaks
• Stock position — fast movers that are nearly out, slow movers tying up money
• Marketing costs versus margin — what does an order cost in advertising, and is there anything left over?

Summarised in one overview:

How do you choose the right KPIs?

Start with the decisions, not with the data. The wrong question is "what can we all measure?" — that always produces an overcrowded screen. The right question is: which decisions do I make every week, and which number do I need for them? Work back from there to the sources.

A maximum of five to seven per view. More numbers does not mean more insight. Once everything is important, nothing is important anymore. If you really need more, create separate views per function — as above — instead of one screen for everyone.

One definition per KPI. What is called a 'customer' in your CRM is called a 'debtor' in your accounting, and "margin" often means something different in sales than in finance. Agree on one definition per KPI and record it in the data model. Otherwise every meeting is about whose number is right instead of about what you do about it.

Give every KPI an owner and a threshold. A number without an owner is decoration. Agree on who acts on it and at what value: below X we make a call, above Y we scale up.

Match the refresh to your rhythm. You want an e-commerce view daily or in real time, a finance view is fine monthly. More important than the frequency: it has to be automatic. Which tool fits for that — Power BI or the free Looker Studio — depends on your sources and your stack; in Looker Studio vs. Power BI we lay out that trade-off in full.

Five common mistakes

1. The everything-on-it dashboard. Forty tiles, six tabs, and no one who still looks at it. A dashboard is not an archive; it is a steering instrument. Cutting is harder than adding — and precisely for that reason more valuable.

2. Vanity numbers instead of steering numbers. Followers, page views, total number of customers ever. They always go up and therefore feel good, but no decision hangs on them. Replace them with numbers that have a goal and a threshold.

3. Manual refresh. If someone copies numbers from three systems into Excel every week, the dashboard lags behind by definition — and errors creep in. After the second "this number is wrong", no one trusts the dashboard anymore, and with that it is dead. Automatic connections to your sources are not a luxury, they are the reason the dashboard exists.

4. No shared definitions. Two departments, two revenue definitions, one meeting spent arguing. Cleaning up and aligning definitions is invisible work, but it is exactly what makes a dashboard reliable — and it is where most of the build time goes, as we explain in what a Power BI dashboard costs.

5. A dashboard without a ritual. The best dashboard changes nothing if no one looks at it consistently. Tie it to a fixed moment — the Monday-morning stand-up, the monthly review — so that the numbers get a fixed place in your decision-making.

See how it works for yourself

Numbers in a row is one thing; feeling how such a cockpit works is another. In our interactive dashboard demo there are eight dashboards running live — including a leadership, sales and e-commerce variant as described above. Click through them and you immediately see which form fits your question.

Want to know after that what it costs to build this on your data? Read the cost article for guide prices per scenario, or take a look at the service page Power BI dashboards. And if you are in doubt whether your data is ready for it: with the free Operations Scan we first map out where your numbers currently come from and where time leaks away.

Further reading

• View the live dashboard demo
• What does it cost to have a Power BI dashboard built?
• Looker Studio vs. Power BI: which do you choose?
• Power BI dashboards

Frequently asked questions

Written by the RiverFlows team · Updated June 2026. This article is informational; for tailored advice book an intro call.