Getting started
What Insight shows on the first day, which tools it reads and how to invite the people who need the numbers.
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What is business analytics software, and how will Insight work?
Short answers to what people ask about business analytics, and practical guides that help whatever you use to watch your numbers today. Questions about Insight itself are answered as designed, because Insight has not shipped.
not shipped · wave 36 guidesuseful before Insight shipsno sign-up needed
Product design preview · Insight has not shipped. All features, screens and prices are proposals.
Insight has not shipped yet.
Insight has not shipped. What you see here — the console, the features, the plans and the prices — is the design, written down in full so you can judge it before it exists. It sits in the third wave of Centilio tools, with no app, no beta and no date yet; a first version is planned to arrive with Centilio One. Join the waitlist and you will be told before anyone else.
Topics
Start with the question you have.
In short: software that gathers a business’s numbers from the places they are kept, puts them side by side, and helps you see what changed and why. Insight is designed as one, built into the tools that hold the numbers.
Everyday use
The dashboard, plain-language questions, the Monday summary and alerts.
Celia
What it explains, what it warns about, and what it never does: change a record or share a view by itself.
Billing
Per business, not per seat, with a Free plan for up to three people and Pro at $19 a month. All prices are proposed.
Guides
Six guides, useful whatever you watch your numbers with today.
Short and practical, and not about Insight until the last step, if at all. They work with a spreadsheet as well as with any dashboard.
How to choose the five numbers to watch each week
A dashboard with forty tiles is a dashboard nobody reads. Start with five.
- Pick one number for money coming in: sales booked, or invoices raised.
- Pick one for cash: what is in the bank, and what is owed to you.
- Pick one for the work: jobs or projects running late.
- Pick one for customers: tickets waiting, or complaints this week.
- Pick one for people: how fully booked the team is. Leave everything else for the day a question needs it.
How to run a twenty-minute weekly numbers review
The point of a weekly review is to notice early, not to explain everything.
- Same day, same time, same five numbers. Monday morning suits most owners.
- Compare with last week and with the same week last year, not with a target nobody remembers setting.
- For any number that moved more than usual, ask one question: why? Write the answer in a sentence.
- Decide one action, name one person, and check it next week.
- Stop at twenty minutes. Anything that needs longer gets its own meeting.
How to read cash and profit side by side
A profitable month can still leave the bank account emptier. Here is why, and what to look at.
- Profit counts work when it is invoiced; cash counts it when it is paid. The gap is what customers owe you.
- Look at what is owed by age: under 30 days is normal, over 60 deserves a call.
- Look for bills paid early or late, which move cash without changing profit.
- Watch the trend over three months, not one; a single month is usually timing.
- Ask your accountant which of the two your lender, investor or tax return cares about.
How to explain why a number moved
“Sales are down” is a worry. “Sales are down because two large renewals moved to next month” is a plan.
- Check the move is real: same period, same definition and same source as last time.
- Split it. Which customer, product, team or region made the difference?
- Find the few records that moved it most — usually three or four, not three hundred.
- Say whether it is timing or trend. Timing reverses next month; a trend does not.
- Write it in one sentence with the figure and its source, so the next person does not have to work it out again.
How to share numbers with your accountant without sharing logins
Handing over passwords to five tools is the usual answer, and the worst one.
- Agree what they need: usually sales, invoices owed, bills, bank balances and payroll totals, by month.
- Share views, not accounts: read-only, limited to those figures, with your business name on them.
- Set an end date on anything shared for a one-off job, such as a year-end close.
- Keep a record of what was shared and when, for the day someone asks.
- Withdraw access the day the engagement ends.
How to retire the Sunday-night spreadsheet
The weekend report usually exists because the numbers live in five places. Retire it one tab at a time.
- List every number in the spreadsheet and where you copy it from.
- Cross out the ones nobody has looked at in a month.
- For the rest, find the system that already holds each number and read it from there.
- Run the old spreadsheet and the new view side by side for two weeks; trust the new one when they agree.
- Then stop updating the spreadsheet, and keep the last copy for reference.
Questions
Quick answers.
What kind of analytical software is used in business intelligence?
Usually a mix: reporting and dashboard tools to show the numbers, query and data-modelling tools to shape them, and a store such as a data warehouse to hold them. Larger organisations run all three; a small business mostly needs the first, built on records it already keeps.
What does business analytics mean?
It means using the records a business already has — sales, invoices, costs, time, support — to see what is happening and why. The software collects those records, puts them side by side and makes changes easy to spot.
Which analytics tools are rated highest?
Ratings change every few months, and review sites rank tools by category and company size, so the honest answer depends on who is asking. Our comparison page sets Insight beside the three tools it is most often weighed against, on facts that stay true.
Why do organisations use analytics software?
To stop arguing about what the numbers are and start deciding what to do about them. One trusted view saves the hours spent assembling reports, and shows problems while they are still small.
How large is the business analytics and reporting software market?
Large and growing, but analyst estimates differ widely depending on how the market is defined, so no single figure is quoted here. For a small business the useful question is narrower: how many hours a week go into building reports by hand.
Do I need to set up reports?
No. Insight starts with the reports every business needs and learns which ones you open. You can add your own, and you never have to.
Can I bring in data from outside Centilio?
Yes, through Loop connectors and spreadsheet imports. Loop is planned for the same wave as Insight, and outside tools will be listed when they exist.
When is Insight available?
Insight is in the third wave of Centilio tools, and a first version is planned to ship with Centilio One. There is no date yet; the waitlist hears before any announcement.
Contact
Ask us something this page does not answer.
Insight is still being designed, so the questions you send now shape it. Tell us which numbers you chase every week and where they live today, and we will tell you how Insight is designed to handle them.
Next for you
What Insight reads from.
The tools that hold the numbers. One is live today; the rest arrive in their own waves, and Insight reads each one as it ships.
Every Centilio tool shares one record and one login with Insight.
Hear first when Insight opens.
Insight arrives in the third wave, reading from the tools that hold your numbers as each one ships. Join the waitlist and you will be told before the announcement; until then, Account, Sign and Drive are live and ready to use.