Most joinery shops already know their numbers. The problem is that the numbers live in four places – the estimator’s quote file, the shop foreman’s cutting-list diary, the finisher’s reject notes and somebody’s snagging spreadsheet – and by the time they are pulled together for the monthly meeting, nobody quite agrees on them.
The Carpentry Workshop KPI Dashboard in Power BI is a ready-to-use .pbix report that fixes the reporting half of that problem. It scores 12 carpentry and joinery KPIs against target every month, in MTD and YTD, with traffic lights on both, and it does it the same way every month.
This is a KPI scorecard, not an analytical dashboard. It is not there to let you slice production six ways. It is there to answer one question in the first ten seconds of the meeting: which of our KPIs are we missing, and who owns them?
What the report actually contains
Four visible pages and two hidden tooltip pages.
1. KPI Scorecard
Five slicers along the top – Month, KPI Group, Owner, Priority and Direction – then five summary cards, each with its own twelve-month bar trend and a month-on-month delta: Total KPIs, MTD Target Met, MTD At Risk, MTD Target Missed and Achievement MTD. On the December 2025 sample the file ships with, those read 12, 6, 3, 3 and 98.0%.
Underneath sits the scorecard table. Every KPI carries its group, unit, a twelve-month sparkline, MTD actual, MTD target, MTD achievement %, an MTD status light, a YoY arrow, YTD actual, YTD achievement % and a YTD status light. The rows sort worst-first by MTD achievement, so the two or three KPIs that need discussing are at the top of the page instead of buried in an alphabetical list.
2. KPI Trend
Pick one KPI from the list on the left and the entire page becomes that KPI. Six context cards name it, its group, its unit, its direction, its owner and its priority; five value cards give MTD actual, MTD target, MTD achievement %, MTD status and MTD YoY %. Then two line charts run the full twelve months – this year against last year against target, first month by month, then cumulative.
The cumulative chart is the one worth pausing on. For money, hours and counts the YTD line adds up. For a rate or a ratio it is the average of the months so far, not a running sum – which is exactly the distinction that turns most home-made KPI packs into nonsense by about September.
3. KPI Definition
The same KPI selection, synced across from the Trend page, plus the two things that stop a KPI argument dead: the formula and a plain-English definition. Timber & Sheet Goods Yield % is written out as Net Board Feet in Finished Parts / Board Feet Issued from Rough Stock, and described as the usable material recovered from rough-sawn hardwood and sheet goods after ripping, defecting out knots and cutting nested panel parts. Below that, a month-by-month table sits beside an actual-versus-target chart and an achievement-percentage chart.
4. Get More Templates
A catalogue page listing our other Power BI dashboards, plus a short panel on customising this one. It is not a report page – delete it in ten seconds if you are handing the file to a client.
The two hidden pages, KPI Detail and Trend Detail, are tooltip pages. They surface on hover with achievement, on-target counts and a variance-by-owner or variance-by-priority bar. There is no right-click drillthrough in this build, which is worth knowing before you go hunting for one.
The 12 KPIs it ships with
All twelve are editable – they are a starting point, not a fixed list.
| KPI | Group | Unit | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Timber & Sheet Goods Yield % | Material | % | Higher is better |
| Machine Hours per Cabinet | Productivity | Hrs/Unit | Lower is better |
| Jobs Completed | Delivery | Count | Higher is better |
| Quote Hour Variance % | Estimating | % | Lower is better |
| Site Snagging Hours | Quality | Hours | Lower is better |
| On-Time Install Delivery % | Delivery | % | Higher is better |
| Shop WIP Days | Schedule | Days | Lower is better |
| Finishing Defects per 100 Units | Quality | Rate | Lower is better |
| Tooling & Abrasive Spend | Cost | USD | Lower is better |
| Job Gross Margin % | Financial | % | Higher is better |
| Deposit & Final Billing DSO | Financial | Days | Lower is better |
| Skilled-to-Apprentice Hour Ratio | Workforce | Ratio | Higher is better |
Nine groups – Material, Productivity, Delivery, Estimating, Quality, Schedule, Cost, Financial and Workforce – and nine owners, from the Machine Shop through Finishing and Site Installation to Finance and the Workshop Manager, each KPI flagged Critical, High or Medium. That owner column does more work than it looks like it should: a KPI with a name against it gets chased.
The part most KPI packs get wrong: direction
Seven of these twelve KPIs are lower-is-better. Machine hours per cabinet, quote hour variance, snagging hours, WIP days, finishing defects, tooling spend and DSO are all things you want going down. Five are higher-is-better: yield, jobs completed, on-time install, gross margin and the skilled-to-apprentice ratio.
A scorecard that treats them all the same way will tell you a shop that halved its snagging hours had a terrible month. This one scores Actual / Target for higher-is-better KPIs and Target / Actual for lower-is-better ones, so beating a cost or a defect target reads above 100%, as it should. The traffic lights follow the same maths – On Target at 100% or more, At Risk between 95% and 100%, Missed below 95% – and MTD and YTD are lit independently, so a bad month inside a good year looks like exactly that.
When you swap in your own KPIs, the UTB / LTB column in the workbook is the single most important edit you will make. Get it wrong and the report will confidently reward the wrong behaviour.
How you put your own numbers in
The download is a ZIP with three files: the .pbix, a Data.xlsx workbook and a user manual PDF. Keep all three in one folder – the report reads the workbook from beside it.
- Open the .pbix in Power BI Desktop, which is free.
- Look at the shipped month first. There is a full worked year in there, so you can see a finished review before you change anything.
- Edit the KPI Definition sheet – name, group, unit, formula, definition, direction, owner, priority, one row per KPI.
- Fill Input_ Target and Input_ Actual, one row per KPI per month. Put the prior year into Input_ Actual as well, or the YoY arrows and prior-year lines will be blank.
- Press Home > Refresh. Counts, slicer lists, scorecard rows and every chart follow whatever is in the workbook.
Add a KPI, rename one, delete one – nothing in the report is hard-coded to the twelve it ships with. If you move the workbook, repoint it under Home > Transform data > Data source settings > Change Source.
What it is not
Worth being blunt about, because a KPI file is easy to oversell. This is a reporting template. It does not produce the numbers – you type them in monthly.
It is not job-costing or estimating software, not a quoting tool, not a CAD or CNC nesting system, not stock or timber purchasing, and not accounting. It does not connect to your shop-floor terminals, your ERP, your accounts package or your CNC. It is not a health-and-safety or CDM system, and it holds no FSC or PEFC chain-of-custody records. Site Snagging Hours and Finishing Defects per 100 Units are management indicators you enter yourself – useful for running the shop, not evidence for a main contractor, an auditor or an insurer.
The sample figures are an illustrative worked example, not benchmarks for the joinery trade. Do not quote them at anyone.
Scorecard or dashboard – which one do you want?
We publish two different things with similar names, and it is worth picking the right one.
A KPI scorecard – this file – has a month picker, targets, achievement percentages and traffic lights. It answers “are we hitting our numbers?”. An analytical dashboard has no targets; it slices revenue, volume and cost by product, customer and period, and answers “what is going on?”. If your monthly meeting starts with a target list, you want this one.
There is a separate Carpentry Workshop KPI Scorecard in Excel and in Google Sheets on our catalogue as well. Those come from our spreadsheet scorecard line and carry their own KPI lists – they are related products, not cut-down copies of this report.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a paid Power BI licence?
No. Power BI Desktop is free and will open, edit and refresh the file. You only need Pro or Premium if you want to publish it to the Power BI Service and share it there.
Can I use more or fewer than 12 KPIs?
Yes. Add or remove rows across the three sheets in Data.xlsx and refresh. The counts, slicers, scorecard and charts all follow the workbook.
Is there a drillthrough page?
No. There are two hidden tooltip pages that appear on hover, and the KPI Definition page carries the month-by-month detail – reached through a synced slicer rather than a right-click.
Why does a KPI show 107.6% when I expected less?
Because achievement is direction-aware. Lower-is-better KPIs score Target / Actual, so coming in under a cost, snagging or cycle-time target reads above 100%.
Is there an Excel version of this same dashboard?
An Excel edition of this exact 12-KPI dashboard is being prepared for the NextGenTemplates catalogue alongside the Power BI one. If it is not listed when you look, check back shortly – it uses the same KPI list, the same direction-aware scoring and the same traffic-light bands.
Can I rebrand it?
Yes. Native visuals only, one custom theme file driving every colour, and the header and footer are editable text and image objects. Recolour it once and the whole report follows.
Get the template
The Carpentry Workshop KPI Dashboard in Power BI is a one-time purchase on NextGenTemplates – the .pbix, the Data.xlsx workbook and a user manual, with lifetime access to the file and no subscription.
If you would rather work in a spreadsheet, look at the Carpentry Workshop KPI Scorecard in Excel or the Carpentry Workshop KPI Scorecard in Google Sheets. For volume furniture production rather than bespoke joinery, the Wood & Furniture Manufacturing KPI Dashboard in Power BI is the closest sibling, and the trades that follow you on site have the same build in the Flooring Installation KPI Dashboard in Power BI and the Painting Contractor KPI Dashboard in Power BI.
For video walkthroughs of our Power BI and Excel templates, subscribe to the PK: An Excel Expert YouTube channel.
