The Business Operations Hub
A business operations tool built by a small business operator.
Staying on top of all aspects of project management can be tough, especially if you are juggling multiple clients or programs. When faced with this challenge myself, I developed an Airtable-based operations system to track time, manage invoices, and centralize data.
Learn more about this Business Operations Hub (BOH), a custom template that’s perfect for small businesses, operations managers, and entrepreneurs.
When I started my consulting business I didn’t have a centralized operations system but I knew I would need one to stay on top of my work. I looked at various platforms and tools but nothing had everything I wanted, at least not at a price that made sense for me. Not only that but most systems had fairly limited customization or had features that I didn’t need and cluttered up the screen. Ultimately, I ended up returning to Airtable, my go-to program for project management, creating an interface from the ground up that gave me the comprehensive system that I needed.
Over the past three years, I have refined my base and even used it as a template to set up operations systems for some of my clients. I customized the most recent version for Roll Good Games, a firm that specializes in running tabletop games for businesses and groups seeking unique team-building experiences. After helping them import all of their existing data, I was able to get them up and running in no time.
I decided to release the full BOH template for free so that others who need a low-cost, user-friendly business operations system can use this tool as a jumping-off point and make it their own.
The Importance of Approachability
When turning my personal business operations system into a template, I focused on making it as approachable as possible, without sacrificing the qualities that made it such a powerful tool. I wanted anyone with a willingness to learn the basics of Airtable to be able to take this template and run with it.
I created a Welcome Guide to walk new users through the setup process, allowing you to customize your base directly from the setup interface including inputting basic information, setting up page headers, and guiding you through activating essential automations. Whether you're creating your first timesheet entry or logging expenses, the interfaces are designed to give you a helping hand.
A screen recording of a typical user interaction with the timesheet page. It shows how you can easily adjust or move events, update basic information, and review any associated notes.
My Go-To Tool For Daily Operations
I designed the dashboards to give me a complete overview of my time, income, and activities. It allows me to track my hours worked, monitor client services, and analyze my productivity week-by-week, all from one centralized location.
At the start of each and every work day, I open up the timesheet interface and review my calendar for upcoming meetings and work sessions. Because I have all of my events, client meetings, work sessions, and personal time blocks saved in one place, I am able to see at a glance how flexible my schedule is for any given day. I also make a habit of blocking off work sessions, titled with the tasks I need to complete for a particular client so that I don’t inadvertently over-schedule my time.
The timesheet page lets me create, modify, and move events directly within the calendar, ensuring accurate and efficient logging of my activities. Plus, the expanded record view gives me access to detailed data for each timesheet entry, including all associated invoices, services provided, and the calculated cost of service, based on the agreed-upon hourly rate for the associated scope of work.
A Solid Base With Limitless Customization
The beauty (and curse) of using a program like Airtable to design the BOH is that I was able to make something specific to my exact needs as a business owner, but I could (and likely will) never stop refining and enhancing it. There is almost no limit to what it is possible to accomplish in Airtable, especially when it is integrated with third-party services such as Gmail (emailing), Slack (chats), Stacker (custom user dashboards), DocsAutomator (automated PDF exports), etc.
Customization isn’t limited to how the system functions. Even the internal look and feel of the dashboards can be changed to reflect your specific business branding. In addition to the branding options built into the template dashboards, the template comes with two pre-built PDF templates, one for invoices and one for scopes of service. These are designed to make it as straightforward as possible for new users to adjust the PDF templates to reflect your business’s brand and contact information.
Example invoice exported directly from Airtable, customized for Roll Good Games.
Screen recording of the invoice dashboard.
Comprehensive Invoice Management
The three features I use the most in my day-to-day work are the timesheet dashboard, task dashboard, and invoice management system. Because Airtable is a relational database, all of these records communicate with each other. When a timesheet entry is linked to a service, it can be automatically linked to an invoice, instantly updating your billing for the month and projections for the year. All that to say, invoice management is deeply woven into the BOH.
It was of the utmost importance to me when making this system that the invoices be not just accurate, but easy to produce, and intuitive to track. You can update, review, track, export, and email (with a personal note!) invoices directly all from within the BOH. The system even highlights the status of each invoice making it easy to see at a glance those that have been paid or that may be overdue.
Need a hand getting started? Let me know!
You can connect with me for a personal tour of the system and discover how I can support your operations.
Additionally, I can provide personalized setup services, data migration, and customizations such as automated PDF exports of invoices, scopes, and more.
I believe that excellent customer support is key to ensuring your success. From initial setup to ongoing development, I am here to answer your questions, address your concerns, and help you make the most of the template.
Time is our most precious resource and freeing up time for higher-level tasks or just taking a walk with my dog is the biggest benefit a streamlined operations system can bring.
Getting Technical
Now that you’ve got the basics, if you want to learn more, here are some of the details about the template you might want to know before jumping in.
Functionality
This template is designed so that business owners can get bird's-eye-view of their operations through a user friendly dashboard. It is a one-stop shop for "front-end" data access, minimizing the necessary investment in" “back-end" operations, which typically are a problem for small firms, who usually don’t have admin/back-end experts on staff. Most routine tasks can be conducted by average users through pre-built interfaces. Advanced customization can be accomplished through “back-end” edits, should you want to make the system even more applicable to your needs. The BOH can be used largely ‘out-of-the-box’ which allows new users to navigate their specific business operations with ease.
Associated Costs & Limitations
This template is currently optimized for features available through Airtable's team plan, which requires a monthly subscription of ~$20/month.
Formatted document exporting is limited without third-party integrations.
Optional Additional Features
Optional enhancements include expanded administrative capabilities, automatic exporting of proposals, meeting notes, etc., and more advanced integrations into existing programs and systems such as Slack, Google Workspace, etc. Here’s a look at some options we’ve built for other clients:
Task Notifications: External account connections like Slack can be integrated in the system, and emails/notifications can be set to send automatically.
Documentation and Support: Detailed descriptions can be provided to accompany automations and tables, or you can layer in your business’s standard processes and procedures.
Scope of Service Exports & Emailing: Auto-generate a PDF of a scope and email it directly to clients.
Timesheet Efficiencies: Automatically link a timesheet entry to the appropriate invoice and sync timesheet entries to external calendar(s).
Invoice Exports & Emailing: Generate formatted PDFs of invoices and auto-email them to clients.
Features
Interfaces included in the BOH Template
Timesheet Overview
Allows users to quickly log, track, and link their time to particular projects and services. Includes income and hour stats such as total per-month income and hours worked by week. Also features a fully interactive calendar with pop-out views for editing timesheet details and a gallery of active invoices.
Income Overview
High-level dashboard displaying operational stats including a graph showing the invoices over time, income by client, income by status (paid, outstanding, to be billed, projected), timesheets by month (broken down by billable vs. overhead), and income by year.
Invoices
Allows users to view and filter all invoices along with high-level data such as total cost of services, total hours worked, and cost of service by client.
Tasks
Allows users to display tasks and to-do’s in a variety of views: Kanban, List, and Calendar. Task details are visible via side-sheet (pop-out) views.
Contacts
All contacts are displayed in a gallery that is filterable, sortable, and searchable. Plus, contact details are visible via side-sheet views.
Contract Management
A step-by-step walkthrough of how to set up a scope of service. This includes key proposal elements such as client information, services, time estimates, and more.
Resources
The resource interface holds key documents, links, and other information including branding materials, websites, receipts, and anything else you might want track. All resources are indexed and displayed with their applicable information such as title, attachments, links, notes, authors, and citations.
Organizations
All organizations, companies, and groups your business interacts with are displayed in a gallery that is filterable, sortable, and searchable. Organization details are visible via side-sheet views. This interface is distinct from Contacts to enable Contacts to be linked directly to an Organization and vice versa.
Scope of Services
Enables users to easily see and create proposals for work (or scopes of service) with delineated services, custom billing rates, and an editable description of work. They can be managed and set up via this dashboard, but also via the Contract Management page.
Finance/Expense Tracking
Allows users to log, filter, and search through all expenses and other transactions. Particularly helpful for monitoring expenses and gathering data for annual financial auditing purposes.
The BOH Template
Explore or create your own copy of the BOH template below.