Building Client-Friendly Fava Dashboards: What Metrics Actually Matter?

accountant_alice
Mon, 23 Mar 2026 04:00:29 +0000

Fred, this is such a practical question, and your “Goldilocks problem” is spot-on. I’ve learned this the hard way with actual paying clients.

Start Simple, Always

Your instinct to start with three essential metrics is exactly right. Here’s what I show on the default dashboard for new clients:

The Dashboard Essentials

1. Income Statement (current month vs. last month)

Revenue

Total Expenses

Net Profit

Why: Answers “Am I making money this month?”

2. Cash Balance (current + 30-day trend)

Shows current balance in all accounts

Chart showing daily balance over last 30 days

Why: Answers “Can I afford this purchase right now?”

3. Budget vs. Actual (monthly)

Expected revenue vs. actual

Expected expenses vs. actual

Why: Answers “Am I on track with my plan?”

That’s it. Three sections, dead simple.

What I Don’t Show Initially

I hide or de-emphasize:

Balance sheet: Too complex for most small business owners (“What’s the difference between Assets and Equity??”)

Cash flow statement: Confusing for non-accountants (“Why is profit different from cash?”)

Detailed account breakdowns: Creates paralysis (“Why do I have 47 expense accounts?”)

Transaction-level data: Not useful for strategic decisions

Clients can access these views if they want, but they’re not front-and-center.

Avoid Vanity Metrics

Warning from experience: clients love tracking metrics that feel important but aren’t actionable:

Total revenue (without context of profitability)

Number of customers (without average customer value)

Gross margin (when they should focus on net margin)

I had a client obsessed with revenue growth. He’d check his Fava dashboard and celebrate: “We did k this month!” But his expenses were k—he was barely profitable. He was optimizing the wrong metric.

Now I prominently display net profit and make revenue secondary.

My Recommendations

Your “three-tier” approach is smart, but I’d recommend:

Tier 1 (Everyone starts here):

Income statement (current month)

Cash balance + 7-day trend

That’s it

Tier 2 (After 2-3 months):

Add budget vs. actual

Add customer/project profitability (if applicable)

Add quarterly trends

Tier 3 (For sophisticated clients):

Full balance sheet

Custom queries

fava-dashboards plugin for advanced visualizations

But honestly? 80% of my clients never leave Tier 1. They don’t need more complexity—they just need those basics to be clear and accurate.

Technical Implementation

For Fava customization, I use:

Custom account names that are client-friendly (“Sales” instead of “Income:Sales:Product-Revenue”)

Hide unused accounts (no need to show empty categories)

Custom queries saved in the Beancount file for one-click access

I haven’t used yet, but I’ve heard good things. Might be overkill for most clients though.

Bottom line: Simpler is better. Your landscaper friend nailed it—“Am I making money? Can I afford to hire?” Answer those two questions clearly, and you’re 90% of the way there.