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A month with Metric Bridge

A sample month: the report, the portal and the alerts

Common Hour runs four Melbourne cafes turning over about $5m a year, with no analyst on staff. This is their July: everything that lands in their inbox over the month, and what they do about it.

Open the sample

Reading the report as

Illustrative sample. Common Hour is a fictional Melbourne cafe group and every figure here is a worked example built from generated data, not a real account.

The month

One month, as it lands in your inbox.

Six moments, each opening the real thing a client receives that day. Scroll the month and the thread fills, one decision at a time.

  1. We connect your POS, your rostering system and Xero with read-only access, once, across all four venues. After that you never touch the data again: no dashboards to maintain, no exports to send.

  2. That morning, the month’s report and a live dashboard appear in your portal. One email, one link, no attachments. Here is what is inside it.

    Open the reportOpen the portalRead the full PDF

  3. The highest-leverage email of the month: it exists to drive the decision.

    FromVj, Metric Bridge
    ToDan, Common Hour
    Two weeks in: are the Glen Waverley hours coming out?

    Hey Dan,

    Two weeks on from the report. Priority 1 was to bring Glen Waverley’s weekend call-ins back to roster: they ran 78.5 hours over plan in July, worth about $2,933 a month.

    Has it moved? If yes, the numbers worth watching are weekend hours against roster, labour as a share of sales at that site, and net sales per labour hour. If you have hit a snag, reply and I will take a look.

    Either way: the Yarraville 3pm trial is meant to start in September. Flagging it in case it slipped.

  4. The dashboard caught Coburg giving away more than twice its normal rate for three days running, and the alert went out at 6am, before anyone opened a laptop.

    FromMetric Bridge anomaly alerts
    ToDan, Common Hour
    CRITICALDiscounts, voids and comps: Common Hour Coburg

    Hi Dan,

    Coburg has given away more than twice its normal rate in discounts, voids and comps for three days running.

    What we are seeing

    • 15, 16 and 17 July ran at 3.17%, 2.73% and 3.41% of gross sales.
    • Coburg’s trailing twelve-week mean is 1.26%.
    • Hawthorn, Yarraville and Glen Waverley are all near 1.1%.

    What to do

    Pull the Coburg discount and void report for the last week, split by reason code and staff member. The usual cause is a promotion or staff rate with no end date.

    This alert fired automatically from your dashboard data this morning, 18 July 2026, 06:00 AEST. Reply or WhatsApp me if anything is off.

  5. A quiet read on what is coming, sent before the month closes.

    FromVj, Metric Bridge
    ToDan, Common Hour
    Your next report: early signals

    Hey Dan,

    Working on your next report now. Two early reads from the live dashboard, both about Yarraville:

    1. The afternoon block earns 7.0% of the venue’s revenue on 18.0% of its labour hours.
    2. After 2pm it takes $111 an hour, against $198 to $246 at your other three venues.

    That is the case for the 3pm trial, and it is worth about $2,680 a month. If you want a 15-minute call to walk through it live, reply with two times.

  6. Next month’s data is already being pulled from all four venues. No re-brief, no re-scoping, no chasing. The next report is the start of the next decision.

Inside the report

Not a PDF link. The month, made explorable.

The same report that landed on Day 1, with the beats that decide the month pulled out so you can read them straight.

Prefer the PDF? Read the full 14 pages

The move this month

Take hours out of Glen Waverley next month, starting with the weekend call-ins.

It is the only one of your four venues losing money, and the improvement that was closing the gap ran out in May.

The opportunity, money on the table

Bringing Glen Waverley’s labour into line with your other three is worth about $96,228 a year, wages only, at July’s sales.

DirectionalEleven months of Glen Waverley roster data against the same period at Hawthorn, Yarraville and Coburg, matched to POS sales by day and daypart.

Labour with on-costs is 83% of the gap to your other three venues, rent is 12% and cost of sales almost none. Closing it moves group contribution from 5.4% to 7.3%.

How we got to the number

Glen Waverley labour, wages only
39.5%
Other three venues, combined
30.8%
Gap
8.7 pp
Glen Waverley net sales, July
$92,172
Gap applied to those sales
$8,019
Same gap over twelve months
$96,228

One insight

Your group P&L cannot show you the venue that is losing money.

The evidence

  • Contribution by venue: Hawthorn $11,427, Yarraville $8,251, Coburg $6,130, Glen Waverley minus $3,697.
  • Labour as a share of sales: Yarraville 30.4%, Hawthorn 30.5%, Coburg 31.7%, Glen Waverley 39.5%.
  • Group labour is 32.8%, inside the ATO band of 27% to 35%. Nothing at group level reads as wrong.

The mechanism

Glen Waverley runs 975.6 labour hours, 91% of Hawthorn’s, on 73% of Hawthorn’s sales. It earns $94 per labour hour against $116 at Coburg, $119 at Hawthorn and $124 at Yarraville. How it spreads those hours across the day already matches its own trade. The total is what is wrong.

The implication

The venue split is the only view that names the site. Bringing its labour to the 30.8% your other three run is worth $8,019 a month, and it moves group contribution from 5.4% to 7.3%.

The anomaly flag

Coburg gave away 2.86% of gross sales in July, against a 1.26% mean.

Discounts, voids and comps at Coburg came to $2,776 on $97,062 of gross sales. At the 1.26% it ran over the previous twelve weeks, that would have been $1,219. It sat above the mean on every day of July and began climbing in early June, so this is a level rather than a spike, and the $1,557 difference repeats every month until the cause is found.

This is the same alert that fired on Day 18. The report and the inbox tell one story.

Your portal

One link. The whole month, in one place.

No inbox archaeology, no attachments to chase. Every report, alert and walkthrough lives at one private link you bookmark once, and it stays the same link every month.

Open the live sample portal

This opens the real page a client logs into, for this same month: the full scorecard, every chart and the appendix tables. Common Hour is a worked example, so the numbers are illustrative. The portal is not.

Interactive preview, click any tab to explore

Common HourClient portal
July 2026Refreshed weekly · last 31 Aug
Owner's ChecklistThis month, three priorities.
  1. Bring Glen Waverley’s weekend call-ins back to roster.$2,933 / moBy 30 Sep
  2. Trial a 3pm close at Yarraville for September.$2,680 / moDecision 1 Oct
  3. Pull Coburg’s discount and void report by reason code.$1,557 / moBefore the August close
Group revenue$411,408+3.1% MoM
Group contribution$22,1115.4% of revenue
Labour, group32.8%Inside the 27% to 35% band
Labour, Glen Waverley39.5%Above the 35% ceiling
Glen Waverley labour vs the band ceilingBand ceiling 35%

The last six months. The improvement stopped in May, and the line has never reached the band.

Same link, every month

Where this goes

One report, or the whole system.

Most clients start with the report.

Tier 1

$500/ mo

The report

The 14-page Monthly Performance Report, every month.

Tier 2The move

$1,500/ mo

The whole month you just read

Everything above, plus everything else on this page.

One call. One monthYour first decision.

Book the 15-minute call. We will look at three of your numbers live, no deck.

Book a callOr email vj@metricbridge.com.au

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