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By Miguel Abascal
• 3 articles

Understanding Your Insights Page

The Insights page is your dashboard When you sign in to BitBooks, the first thing you see is the Insights page. Other accounting tools call this "Dashboard." Same idea: a single screen showing the most important numbers at a glance. The page answers four questions in three seconds: 1. Are we making money? (KPI row at the top) 2. How much cash do we have, and what do we owe? (Working capital row) 3. Where are our wallets sitting? (Wallet snapshot) 4. Where is the money going? (Expense breakdown) Full Insights page on a populated organization, all four sections visible The page header At the very top of the Insights page you'll find: - The page title: "Insights" - Notifications bell. Recent activity that needs your attention (new connector imports, period-close reminders, etc.) - Ledger health icon. A traffic-light status. Green means your books are internally consistent (debits = credits everywhere). Red means something is off and the Trial Balance report can show you what. - "As of" date. The cutoff used to compute everything on this page. Defaults to today. - "View reports" link. Jumps to the full Reports page where you can dig into details. Insights page header strip with the four icons and the As-of date highlighted Period selector Just below the header is a dropdown that lets you change the time period for everything on the page. Options: - Year to date (default). January 1 of the current year through today. - Last month - Last quarter - Last year - Custom period. Pick any start and end date. When you change the period, all four sections (KPIs, working capital, wallet snapshot, expense breakdown) recalculate. Period selector dropdown open, showing options The same dropdown also lets you pick a specific year if you have multiple years of history. Selecting "2024" will show all of 2024. Section 1. KPI row Four key performance numbers across the top: - Revenue. Total income for the period. - Cost of sales. Direct costs of producing what you sold. - Gross profit. Revenue minus cost of sales. The profit before overhead. - Net profit. Final profit after all expenses, including overhead. Each KPI has: - The current period number (large) - The prior-period number (smaller, for comparison) - A trend chip. Up arrow (green) means improvement, down arrow (red) means decline, dash means flat. - A "vs" label explaining what the prior period is. For year-to-date, the prior is the same period last year. For "last month," the prior is the month before that. KPI row with Revenue, Cost of Sales, Gross Profit, Net Profit, each showing prior comparison and trend chip If the numbers shown are sample data (because you haven't entered real transactions yet), you'll see a "Sample Future Insights" banner across the top. Sample mode disappears as soon as you have real data. Section 2. Working capital row Working capital is "money you can use right now." It answers: if all my customers paid me today and I paid all my bills today, how much would I have left? Four metrics: - Cash on hand. Total balance across all your wallets and bank accounts. - Receivables. Money customers owe you (invoices not yet paid). - Current liabilities. Money you owe to others, due within a year. - Net working capital. Cash on hand plus receivables minus current liabilities. A negative net working capital number is a warning. It means your short-term obligations are bigger than your near-term resources. Working capital row with the four metrics, color-coded Section 3. Wallet snapshot A quick view of your wallets and their current balances. For each wallet, you see: - Wallet name (e.g., "Blink Lightning Hot") - Current balance in the wallet's native currency (BTC, USD, EUR, etc.) - Equivalent in your reporting currency (small text underneath) - Sync status indicator (synced / syncing / error / never) Click any wallet to jump to its detail page with full transaction history. The wallet snapshot shows your top 5 wallets by balance. To see all of them, go to Wallets in the sidebar. Wallet snapshot card with 3-4 wallet rows, sync status icons visible Section 4. Expense breakdown A donut chart showing where your money went during the selected period. Each slice is a different expense category (Rent, Salaries, Software Subscriptions, etc.) with a percentage. Hovering over a slice shows the dollar amount. This view helps you spot two things fast: 1. Top expense categories. Where most of your spending lives. 2. Surprises. A category you don't expect to be large that suddenly is. For a deeper analysis, click "View reports" in the page header to open the full P&L. Expense breakdown donut chart with several colored slices, legend visible What "Sample Future Insights" means If your organization is brand new and has no real transactions yet, the Insights page shows example data so it's not just empty space. You'll see a banner across the top: Sample Future Insights: these figures are illustrative. The numbers are fake. They're there to show you what the page looks like once your real data is in. As soon as you connect a wallet or post a transaction, the sample data disappears and your real numbers take over. Insights page in sample mode with the orange banner visible Refreshing the data Insights numbers come from your live database. When you post a new transaction, the dashboard reflects it within a few seconds (the page is computed server-side, then sent to your browser). If you want to force a refresh, just reload the page in your browser. Performance note For organizations with thousands of transactions, the Insights page may take a second or two to load when you first open it or when you change the period. This is normal. We're recomputing every KPI from scratch, not relying on a cached number that might be stale. If it ever takes more than 5 seconds, that's a sign of a real problem and worth contacting support about. Where to go next - Reports for a deeper view of any KPI - Trial Balance if the ledger health icon is red - Wallets to manage your wallet list - Activity Log to see recent activity in detail

Last updated on May 03, 2026

Reading the KPIs and Period Selector

What KPIs are showing you The top of the Insights page shows four numbers (KPIs): - Revenue. Total income for the period. - Cost of Sales. What it cost to produce what you sold. - Gross Profit. Revenue minus Cost of Sales. - Net Profit. What's left after all operating expenses. Each KPI shows: 1. The current period number (large) 2. The prior period number (smaller, for comparison) 3. A trend chip: green up arrow (improving), red down arrow (declining), grey dash (flat) 4. A "vs" label showing what the comparison is Close-up of the KPI row showing all four metrics with prior values and trend chips How prior period is chosen The prior period depends on what you have selected: | Current period | Prior period | |---|---| | Year to date | Same period last year | | Last month | The month before | | Last quarter | The quarter before | | Last year | Two years ago | | Custom range | The same length range immediately before | For example, if you set custom Jan 15 to Feb 15, the prior is Dec 14 to Jan 14 (same 32 days, ending the day before the current period starts). This is the standard way of comparing. It answers "are we doing better or worse than the same period before?" Reading the trend chip - Green arrow up = current period is better than prior. For revenue and profit, "better" means bigger. For expenses, "better" means smaller (less spending is better). - Red arrow down = current is worse than prior. The opposite logic. - Grey dash = essentially flat (less than ~1% change either way). The chip color is based on the metric's direction-of-good. Revenue going up is green. Expenses going up is red. The system flips the meaning automatically so you don't have to think about it. When prior period numbers feel wrong A few cases where the prior period number can surprise you: "Year to date" early in the year If it's January 8 and you switch to "Year to Date," you're comparing 8 days of this year to all of last year. That's apples to oranges. Switch to "Last Year" or a custom range that matches what you actually want to compare. Brand new business If you started in October and you're looking at "Last Year" in March, the prior period was before the business existed. You'll see your full revenue this year vs $0 last year. The trend chip will say +infinity. Not useful information; just acknowledge the comparison isn't meaningful yet. Period spans a major event If your prior period included a one-time event (a big sale, a big expense, a fundraising round), the comparison will look weird in the period after. That's just the nature of comparison; it doesn't mean the books are wrong. The period selector A dropdown at the top of the Insights page lets you change the period. Period selector dropdown open, showing all available presets Options: - Year to date (default) - Last month - Last quarter - Last year - A specific year (one entry per year you have data for) - Custom period (pick any start and end date) When you change the period, all four KPIs recalculate, and the working capital row, wallet snapshot, and expense breakdown update too. The period selector affects only the Insights page. The Reports page has its own date picker. What's NOT included in KPIs A few things that don't show up here: - Drafts. Excluded from all reports including KPIs. Only Posted entries count. - Future-dated transactions. If you're looking at "Year to Date" and it's March, transactions dated in April don't count even if you've already posted them. - Closed-period changes. If you reopen and edit a closed period, the changes do count in the recalculation. Reopening is rare. Where the numbers come from KPIs are calculated server-side from the underlying journal entries. The same logic that produces the P&L produces the KPIs, so they always agree: - Revenue KPI = Total Income on the P&L - Cost of Sales KPI = Total Cost of Sales on the P&L - Gross Profit = Revenue minus Cost of Sales - Net Profit = bottom line of P&L If a KPI looks wrong, run the P&L for the same period. They should match. If they don't, that's a bug worth reporting to support. Multi-currency note The KPIs display in your functional currency (your organization's main currency). If your organization has a secondary reporting currency set, you can toggle between functional and reporting display. The numbers don't change, just the currency they're shown in. Where to go next - Understanding Your Insights Page for the full dashboard - Profit & Loss Report for the deeper view of revenue and expenses - Notifications, Ledger Health, Activity Log for the other dashboard widgets - The Three-Currency Model for the currency display logic

Last updated on May 03, 2026

Notifications, Ledger Health, and Activity Log

Three places to check daily The top-right of the Insights page has three icons that surface things you should look at: - Notifications bell. New activity that may need attention. - Ledger health icon. Whether your books are internally consistent. - Activity link. Quick jump to the Activity Log report. Together they answer: "Anything I should care about right now?" Insights page header with the three icons highlighted in a row The notifications bell Click the bell to see recent activity that touched your work: - New transactions imported by an auto-sync - Transactions posted by other team members - Period close events - Payment requests waiting for your approval (if you're an approver) - FX revaluation runs completed - Errors or warnings from connectors Each notification shows what happened, when, and (where relevant) by whom. Click a notification to jump to the entity it's about. Notifications are organization-scoped. If you have access to several organizations, switch organizations to see that one's notifications. A red dot on the bell means there are unread notifications. Once you click the bell to view them, the dot goes away. Notifications dropdown open showing 3-4 recent notifications The ledger health icon A traffic-light status. Tells you in one glance whether your books are internally consistent. - Green check. Trial Balance is balanced. Debits = credits across all your books. Everything looks healthy. - Yellow warning. Mostly fine but something needs attention. Examples: pending exchange rates that haven't resolved, a sync error on a wallet, recent reversal activity. - Red error. Trial Balance is off. Debits don't equal credits. Something is broken at a deeper level. Investigate immediately. Click the icon to see the underlying detail (which check is failing, which entity is involved, what to do). A red ledger health icon should be rare. If you see one, the right move is: 1. Run the Trial Balance report 2. Look at the Activity Log for recent changes 3. Contact support if you can't identify the cause Don't try to "fix" the number directly. Investigate the cause. The activity log The Activity Log is a full audit trail of every meaningful action in your organization. Who did what, when, and to which entity. Activities tracked: - Created an entity (transaction, journal entry, wallet, account, contact, etc.) - Updated an entity (changed any field) - Deleted an entity (rare, only Drafts) - Archived an entity (soft-deleted) - Approved a payment request or journal entry - Reversed a posted entry - Posted a Draft Each activity row shows: timestamp, user, action, entity type, entity ID, and (where relevant) what specifically changed. Access the full Activity Log from Reports → Activity Log. Or click the activity link in the Insights header to jump straight there. Activity Log report showing 5-10 recent activities with user names and timestamps Filtering the activity log The full report supports filtering: - By user. "Show me everything Brandon did this week." - By entity type. "Show me only transaction-related activity." - By specific entity. "Show me everything that ever happened to journal entry JE-000142." - By date range. Last 24 hours, last week, custom. Useful when investigating a specific issue or doing a periodic review. Notifications vs Activity Log What's the difference? - Notifications are what's new since you last looked. Curated, time-limited, focused on what may need your attention. - Activity Log is the complete history. Everything that ever happened, queryable, persistent. Notifications fade as you view them. The Activity Log doesn't. If you want to find what happened three weeks ago, use the Log. Common questions "Why is my ledger health icon yellow?" Most common reasons: - Pending exchange rates (BitBooks couldn't fetch a rate for a transaction; you need to resolve them) - A wallet sync error (a connection failed; reconnect or retry) - Recent reversal activity (informational, usually nothing to fix) Click the icon for the specific reason. "Notifications stopped showing. Bug?" If the bell never has notifications and you have multiple users, it might be that no one's done anything recently. Go to the Activity Log to confirm. If there's recent activity but no notifications, that's a bug worth reporting. "Can I get notifications by email?" Some events email you (e.g., a payment request needing your approval). Most don't. Email notifications for everything would be too noisy; they're concentrated on things that need a response. "Can I clear notifications without reading them?" Yes, click the "Mark all read" link in the notifications dropdown. Where to go next - Activity Log for the deeper report-level view - Trial Balance if your ledger health is red - Understanding Your Insights Page for the full dashboard - Audit Log (same as Activity Log, for accountants and auditors)

Last updated on May 03, 2026