Small business grants reporting dashboard: status colours and sign-off

What to take away

Write status rules that anyone can apply

Define green, amber and red with numeric or observable criteria. For example, amber might mean a milestone forecast outside internal tolerance but still within the agreement date. Red might mean the contractual date is threatened or approval is required.

Write each threshold so that two people reading the same figure reach the same colour. If a rule needs judgement, say whose judgement it is and record the decision beside the tile.

Put the thresholds in the indicator dictionary beside the tile. The figures below are illustrative.

Freeze the dictionary during a reporting period. If a definition changes, label the break and recalculate earlier figures only when the method and reason are preserved. Otherwise a colour changes for reasons nobody can trace.

Do not average red exceptions into a favourable overall score. Display the highest material risk and its owner, so one red tile is never hidden behind four green ones.

Keep outcome tiles honest

Outcome movement belongs on the dashboard, but causality needs more evidence. Label outputs, observed outcomes and evaluated impacts separately, because monitoring change does not establish that an intervention caused it.

Where no strong comparison exists, use contribution language and record alternative explanations. A green outcome tile then reads as progress against the target, not as proof that the grant produced it.

Place each status in the five sections

Status rules attach to tiles, and the tiles sit in five linked sections. Each section supports one decision, so a colour change should point to a person who can act on it.

Handle stale and missing data

Show the last refresh time and data completeness on every tile. Never present a stale tile as current. Preserve the source extract used for an issued report, so later system changes do not rewrite history.

Document what happens when a source file is late or malformed. The dashboard should preserve the last valid value, mark it stale and alert its owner rather than quietly replacing it with zero.

Use project IDs shared by the ledger, work plan and evidence register. Automate imports only after manual definitions are sound, then reconcile totals and test a sample back to invoices, bank records or accepted outputs. Reconcile again after any formula, field or data-source change.

Test the failure cases before launch

Choose several known edge cases before launch: a credit note, delayed supplier, duplicated participant, missing baseline and approved budget change. Confirm that each produces the right calculation and a visible exception. The common measurement mistakes explain why duplicates and missing baselines distort results.

Test access with an ordinary user account as well as the administrator. A dashboard that works for its builder can still expose rows to people who should not see them.

Keep a manual recovery route for a reporting deadline, including the authorised source extracts and calculation instructions. Do not let dependence on one dashboard remove the underlying audit trail. A dashboard can support formal reporting but does not replace the authorised form or evidence.

Sign off the dashboard before release

Have owners certify their figures, finance reconcile money and an independent reviewer test calculations. Store the released dashboard, date, reviewer and corrections, so any figure can be traced back to who approved it and when.

The Government Functional Standard GovS 015 for grants says performance monitoring is an ongoing process with several checkpoints over the delivery period. Treat each release as one of those checkpoints rather than a one-off.

Remove a tile when it no longer informs a decision or obligation. A tile that nobody acts on still costs refresh time, invites questions and can bury the exceptions that matter, so retire it deliberately and note the reason in the release record.

Limit who sees what

Keep personal data and commercially sensitive supplier information out of broad circulation when an aggregate answers the question. Avoid exporting identifiable rows into presentation files, and keep a documented retention schedule.

Apply access controls and secure sharing. In the UK, the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 set the rules and the Information Commissioner's Office regulates them. GOV.UK says a business must follow data protection rules if it stores or uses personal information. The data protection guide for grant projects applies the same duty to funded work.

Before you act

Common questions

How should status colours be defined and used?

Define green, amber and red with numeric or observable criteria. Do not average red exceptions into a favourable overall score. Show the highest material risk and its owner.

What should happen when a source file is late?

Preserve the last valid value, mark it stale and alert the owner. Do not replace it with zero, and do not present the tile as current.

When is a dashboard ready for release?

When owners have certified their figures, finance has reconciled the money and an independent reviewer has tested the calculations. Store the released version with its date, reviewer and corrections.