So you want your B2B sales pipeline to actually work for you, not just look good in a meeting. You’re probably drowning in data and “insights” but still missing the stuff that matters—like which deals are dying, which reps are sandbagging, and where the next quarter’s going off the rails. If that sounds familiar, this is for you.
This guide is for sales managers, ops folks, and anyone wrangling B2B deals who’s using (or considering) Akountify and wants dashboards that don’t waste their time. We’ll get into what matters, what doesn’t, and how to set up dashboards that actually help you close more deals.
Why Custom Dashboards Matter (and What to Ignore)
Before you even touch a widget, be honest: are you building dashboards to impress the boss, or to actually fix problems? A lot of built-in dashboards are full of fluff—charts that look cool but don’t help you make decisions.
What actually matters in a B2B sales pipeline?
- Where deals are getting stuck (and why)
- Which reps or teams need help (not just who’s #1)
- How much pipeline is real vs. wishful thinking
- What’s likely to close this month or quarter
- Fast ways to spot bad data or missing info
What doesn’t help:
- Pie charts of “deal size by industry” unless you act on it
- Vanity leaderboards that encourage reps to game the system
- “Activity” dashboards that just count emails and calls
Dashboards are only useful if they show you what needs your attention today. If a widget doesn’t make you change something, ditch it.
Step 1: Get Clear on Your Pipeline Stages (Don’t Let the Tool Decide)
Akountify will happily let you use its default pipeline stages, but if you haven’t cleaned this up, stop here. A messy pipeline means messy dashboards.
Do this first:
- List your actual sales stages—what really happens, not what the software says.
- Make sure each stage is clear (everyone should know what “Qualified” means).
- Kill off unused, duplicate, or wishful-thinking stages.
Pro tip: If your team can’t tell you what moves a deal from one stage to the next in a sentence, it’s too fuzzy.
Once your pipeline makes sense, you can actually trust the data you’ll see on your dashboards.
Step 2: Decide What You Need to See—Not What Akountify Thinks You Want
Before you drag any widgets, ask: what decisions do you make because of your dashboard? Here’s what most good B2B sales managers care about:
- Stuck deals: What’s been in the same stage for too long?
- Forecast confidence: Which deals are real, and which are pipe dreams?
- Rep accountability: Who needs coaching, and who needs a high-five?
- Source of pipeline: Where are the good leads really coming from?
- Deal quality: Are we getting better deals, or just more deals?
Ignore:
- Charts nobody looks at after the first month
- “Feel good” metrics that don’t tie to revenue
- Anything that just counts activities for the sake of it
Write down 3–5 things you want to know every morning. Build for those—not for “dashboard completeness.”
Step 3: Build (or Rebuild) Your Dashboards in Akountify
Let’s get hands-on. In Akountify, you can customize dashboards with widgets, filters, and layouts. Here’s how to build a dashboard that’s actually useful.
3.1 Start with a Blank Dashboard
Don’t just copy the default “Sales Overview.” Start from scratch:
- Go to Dashboards > Create New.
- Name it something real (“Pipeline Reality Check,” not “Q2 Dashboard”).
3.2 Add Only the Widgets You Need
For each of your “must-know” questions from Step 2, look for a widget or visualization that answers it.
Examples:
-
Stuck Deals:
Add a table showing deals by stage, filtered to show any stuck for 2x your average stage length.
Why? You can call out bottlenecks in your next pipeline review. -
Forecast Confidence:
Use a bar graph of forecasted revenue, but only show deals with next steps logged in the last 7 days.
Why? It filters out zombie deals. -
Rep Accountability:
Leaderboard by closed revenue and average deal cycle time.
Why? Slow closers might be inflating the pipeline. -
Source of Pipeline:
Pie or bar chart showing new deals by lead source, for the current quarter.
Why? You can prove what’s working (or isn’t). -
Deal Quality:
Table of deals with margin or product mix shown.
Why? Not all revenue is good revenue.
3.3 Use Filters Aggressively
Most teams don’t filter enough. You probably don’t care about deals created last year, or leads from dead industries.
- Set date ranges: Focus on this quarter, or this month.
- Filter by team or region if you’re big enough.
- Exclude irrelevant deal types or stages.
If a chart gets too noisy, filter it down. Less is more.
3.4 Arrange for Action, Not Looks
Put the most important widgets at the top. If you need to scroll, you’ve got too much.
- Top row: Today’s fire drills (stuck deals, at-risk deals)
- Middle: Team performance
- Bottom: Historical trends (only if you use them)
You’re not building a dashboard for a sales kickoff slide—you’re building one to run your pipeline.
Step 4: Kill Bad Data at the Source
Every dashboard is only as good as the data feeding it. Garbage in, garbage out.
Watch out for:
- Stale deals that reps forget to close or move
- Missing fields (like “next step” or “deal value”)
- Reps using “misc” or “other” just to get deals entered
How to fix:
- Set up Akountify’s required fields for key stages (don’t let deals progress without them)
- Use dashboard widgets to find incomplete deals (e.g., “deals missing close date”)
- Coach reps to update deals regularly—or automate reminders
Pro tip: If your dashboard is full of “unknown” or “missing,” you’ve got a process problem, not a dashboard problem.
Step 5: Share, Review, and Iterate
Don’t build dashboards and then hope people use them. Make them part of your weekly sales meetings.
- Pull up your dashboard live—no slide decks, no screenshots.
- Ask: “What’s surprising here? What’s missing?”
- Update filters or widgets as your pipeline changes.
- Archive or delete dashboards nobody uses.
What to ignore:
- Endless dashboard “requests” from execs who never log in
- Widgets that get zero clicks in a month
If your dashboard isn’t helping people do their jobs, change it—or get rid of it.
Pro Tips: Getting More Out of Akountify Dashboards
A few honest tricks from teams who’ve been there:
- Bookmark your main dashboard in your browser. Don’t rely on email alerts alone.
- Use conditional formatting (if available) to highlight at-risk deals in red, or stuck deals in yellow. It sounds cheesy, but it works.
- Limit dashboard sharing to people who actually need it. More eyes = more noise.
- Automate reporting if possible, but always sanity-check the numbers before meetings.
- Build a “data hygiene” dashboard for ops, showing incomplete or messy records. Fix these weekly.
And don’t be afraid to just delete widgets that aren’t getting used. Less is almost always more.
Keep It Simple, Stay Honest, and Iterate
Forget the fancy charts. The best B2B sales dashboards in Akountify are dead simple, brutally honest, and get tweaked constantly. Start with what you need, cut what you don’t, and never fall in love with a widget just because it’s pretty.
The goal isn’t a dashboard you can show off. It’s one you can run your pipeline from—without needing a PhD or a sales ops team to make sense of it. Keep it tight, keep it real, and update as your team and business change. That’s how you actually optimize your pipeline—one honest dashboard at a time.