Recording Notice: This training session is being recorded. The recording and this training guide will be bundled together as reference material for all customers who purchase the CEO Weekly Briefing AI report. By continuing to participate, you consent to the recording being used for this purpose.
DataXcel AI Briefing: Beta Tester Training Guide
Welcome to the beta training session for the DataXcel CEO Weekly Briefing — an AI-powered financial alert system built for construction company owners and controllers running Sage 100 Contractor. The briefing appears directly inside your existing Metabase dashboards and delivers prioritized, actionable alerts across 10 financial categories every week.
Today we will cover:
- How the AI alerts work behind the scenes
- The 10 alert categories and how issues are scored
- How to use the tool — expanding alerts, clicking into dashboards, managing items
- Your feedback — what would make each section more useful, and what additional reports would help
- Show and tell — walk through your live alerts together
- Sage Setup deep dive — a closer look at configuration alerts and how-to articles
1. How CEO AI Alerts Work
Your briefing is generated by an automated pipeline that runs every week. Here is what happens behind the scenes:
Sage 100 Contractor (your SQL Server database)
→ dbt Views (standardized financial data models)
→ Metabase API (SQL queries pull the numbers)
→ Python Briefing Script (aggregates data across 10 categories)
→ Claude AI (analyzes data like a senior financial controller)
→ Structured Alert JSON (scored, categorized, with recommendations)
→ Firestore (secure cloud database)
→ Your Metabase Dashboard (embedded iframe)Key points:
- Your data stays secure. The pipeline reads from your Sage database through the same connection your Metabase reports already use. Nothing is stored outside the secure pipeline.
- AI acts as a senior financial controller. Claude AI receives your numbers along with strict scoring formulas and returns structured alerts with specific, actionable recommendations — not generic advice.
- Updates every week. A scheduled job runs every Monday, regenerates the analysis, and pushes the new briefing to your dashboard automatically. You always see the latest data.
- No login required. The briefing loads directly inside your Metabase dashboard using a secure, time-limited token. You open your dashboard and the briefing is there.
2. The 10 Alert Categories
The AI Briefing monitors your Sage 100 Contractor data across 10 financial areas. Each category draws from specific data sources and has its own scoring logic.
| Category | Short | What It Monitors |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts Receivable | AR | Past-due invoices, aging trends, collection priorities |
| Accounts Payable | AP | Vendor bills, overdue payments, spend anomalies |
| Over/Under Billing | WIP | Over-billed and under-billed jobs, WIP variances |
| Project Management | PM | Backlog health, stale jobs, resource allocation |
| Budget vs Actual | Budget | Budget variances, departmental over/under-spend |
| Balance Sheet | BS | Liquidity, unusual account movements, cash position |
| Income Statement | P&L | Revenue trends, expense anomalies, margin analysis |
| Bookkeeping Review | Books | Stale accounts, uncleared transactions, bank rec gaps |
| End of Year Close | EOY | Period close readiness, 1099 compliance, fiscal year rollover |
| Sage Setup | Setup | Configuration issues, missing defaults, schema problems |
How Urgency Scores Work
Every alert gets an urgency score from 1 to 100. The AI starts each item at 50, then adjusts up or down based on specific financial signals. Higher scores mean more urgent action is needed.
| Severity | Score | Color | What It Means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | 80–100 | Red | Escalate immediately — this needs attention today |
| High | 60–79 | Orange | Needs attention this week |
| Medium | 40–59 | Amber | Monitor closely — trending in the wrong direction |
| Low | 1–39 | Green | On track — no action needed right now |
The sections in the briefing map directly to these tiers: Critical Issues at the top (red), then Warnings (orange), then Watch Items (amber/green), and finally Wins (positive momentum).
3. Category Deep Dives
Let’s walk through each of the 10 categories — what the AI looks for, and what you see in the summary bar.
Accounts Receivable (AR)
What AI looks for: Past-due invoices, aging concentration, collection velocity, and clients who are newly delinquent or rapidly aging. The scoring formula increases urgency for high balances, long aging, and balances over $10K, and reduces scores for clients who have paid recently.
Summary cards: Total AR, 91+ Days Past Due, 7-Day Collections (with week-over-week trend), 7-Day Billing.
Beta Tester Feedback: When you click into your AR alerts, what additional detail would be most helpful? For example: payment history trends, client contact info, or aging by project? The full Service AR dashboard shows client-by-client aging, collection history, and payment trends.
Explore the Service AR Dashboard →
Accounts Payable (AP)
What AI looks for: Overdue vendor bills, spend anomalies, and vendors with large unpaid balances. Same scoring structure as AR — urgency rises with aging and dollar amounts.
Summary cards: Total AP, Overdue AP, 7-Day Paid, New Bills This Week.
Beta Tester Feedback: When you see an AP alert, what would help you act on it faster? Vendor payment terms, check history, or duplicate invoice detection?
Explore the Open AP Dashboard →
Over/Under Billing (WIP)
What AI looks for: Jobs that are significantly over-billed or under-billed relative to percent complete, WIP schedule variances, and jobs with cost overruns that haven’t been billed.
Summary cards: Active Jobs, Total Contract Value, Over Budget Jobs, Average Margin %.
Beta Tester Feedback: What WIP detail would be most useful? Percent complete vs. percent billed by cost code, or a trend view showing how billing gaps are growing?
Explore the Over/Under Billings Dashboard →
Project Management (PM)
What AI looks for: Backlog health, stale jobs with no recent activity, resource allocation gaps, and jobs that are taking longer than expected to complete.
Summary cards: Active Jobs, Backlog Value, Stale Jobs (no recent activity), Avg Days to Complete.
Beta Tester Feedback: What project-level detail would help you manage your team? Timecard summaries by employee, or job profitability ranking by PM?
Explore the PM Oversight Dashboard →
Budget vs Actual
What AI looks for: Departments or cost centers exceeding budget, large unfavorable variances, and trends where spending is accelerating beyond plan.
Summary cards: Total Budget, Total Actual, Over-Budget Departments, Under-Budget Departments.
Beta Tester Feedback: Would you find it more helpful to see budget variances by job, by GL account, or by department? What granularity would make the biggest difference?
Explore the Budget & Committed Costs Dashboard →
Balance Sheet
What AI looks for: Liquidity issues, unusual account movements, cash position changes, current ratio trends, and working capital concerns.
Summary cards: Total Assets, Cash Position, Current Ratio, Working Capital.
Beta Tester Feedback: When the AI flags a balance sheet item, what drill-down would be most useful? Transaction-level detail, month-over-month trend, or comparison to prior year?
Explore the Balance Sheet Dashboard →
Income Statement (P&L)
What AI looks for: Revenue trends, expense anomalies, margin compression, and unusual line items compared to prior periods.
Summary cards: Total Revenue (with growth %), Total Expenses, Net Income, Net Margin %.
Beta Tester Feedback: What P&L view would help you most? Year-over-year comparison, department-level breakdown, or job-level contribution analysis?
Explore the Income Statement Dashboard →
Bookkeeping Review
What AI looks for: GL accounts with no activity in 14+ days that historically had regular activity, uncleared bank transactions, periods without completed bank reconciliations, and suspense account balances. The scoring formula increases urgency for missing bank recs, large uncleared amounts, and cash account gaps over $50K.
Summary cards: Stale Accounts, Uncleared Items, Unreconciled Periods, Suspense Balance.
Beta Tester Feedback: What bookkeeping detail would save your team the most time? A list of specific uncleared transactions, bank rec completion status by account, or stale account activity history?
End of Year Close (EOY)
What AI looks for: Prior-year periods still open, 1099 vendors with “Undetermined” type, open AP from prior fiscal year, whether retained earnings have been rolled forward, and proximity to fiscal year end. The scoring formula adds urgency as year-end approaches and for each compliance gap.
Summary cards: Unclosed Periods, 1099 Issues, Prior-Year AP, Days to Fiscal Year End.
Beta Tester Feedback: What year-end detail would be most valuable? A 1099 readiness checklist, period-by-period close status, or a timeline showing what needs to happen before year-end?
Sage Setup
What AI looks for: Jobs with costs but no budget, missing cost codes, 1099 vendors without tax IDs, GL accounts without category mappings, missing system defaults, and employees missing required payroll fields. Each issue type adds to the urgency score.
Summary cards: Jobs Without Budget, Missing Cost Codes, Vendor Tax ID Issues, Unmapped GL Accounts.
The Sage Setup section is unique — instead of dashboard links, each alert links to a step-by-step help article explaining exactly how to fix the issue in Sage 100 Contractor. We will dig into these in Section 6 below.
4. How Scores Are Calculated
For those who want to understand exactly how urgency scores are determined, here are the scoring formulas. All scores start at 50 and are capped at 100 (floor of 1).
AR / AP Scoring
| Factor | Points |
|---|---|
| Per 30 days past due | +1 |
| Per $1K balance | +1 |
| Balance greater than $10K | +10 |
| Past due more than 365 days | +15 |
| Past due more than 180 days | +10 |
| Newly delinquent (90–120 days) | +5 |
| Paid in last 14 days | −10 |
Bookkeeping Scoring
| Factor | Points |
|---|---|
| Per 7 days since last GL activity | +1 |
| Per $5K in uncleared transactions | +1 |
| Bank rec not completed for prior month | +10 |
| Bank rec missing for 2+ months | +15 |
| Cash account gap greater than $50K | +10 |
| Suspense account balance greater than $0 | +5 |
| Account reconciled in last 7 days | −10 |
End of Year Close Scoring
| Factor | Points |
|---|---|
| Per unclosed prior-year period | +10 |
| Per 1099 vendor with “Undetermined” type | +5 |
| Per $1K in open prior-year AP | +1 |
| Retained earnings not rolled forward | +15 |
| Within 60 days of fiscal year end | +10 |
| Per 1099 payment mismatch greater than $600 | +5 |
| All bank recs complete for fiscal year | −10 |
Sage Setup Scoring
| Factor | Points |
|---|---|
| Per job with costs but no budget | +5 |
| Per missing cost code | +3 |
| Per vendor missing tax ID (if 1099) | +2 |
| Per GL account without category mapping | +5 |
| Default checking account not set | +10 |
| Per employee missing required payroll field | +3 |
5. Using the Tool — Features Walkthrough
Let’s walk through the interface step by step.
Category Tabs
At the top of the briefing, you will see colored pill-shaped buttons — one for each alert category, plus an “All” button. Click any category to filter the view to just that area. Click “All” to see everything. When a category is selected, it expands to show its full name (e.g., “Accounts Receivable”). When unselected, it shows the short label (e.g., “AR”).
Summary Bar
Below the tabs, you will see a row of KPI cards.
- When “All” is selected: One card per category showing the headline metric (e.g., “Total AR: $500K — 12 clients”). Click any card to jump to that category.
- When a category is selected: Four detailed cards specific to that area (e.g., for AR: Total AR, 91+ Days Past Due, 7-Day Collections, 7-Day Billing).
Alert Sections
Alerts are grouped into three sections based on urgency:
- Critical Issues (red header) — “Escalate immediately.” Always displayed prominently at the top.
- Warnings (orange header) — “Needs attention this week.”
- Watch Items (blue header) — “Monitor closely.”
At the bottom, you will also see a Wins section (green) highlighting positive momentum — things going well this week, like increased collections or reduced costs.
Expanding an Alert
Each alert row shows a colored severity dot, the urgency score, category badge, entity name (client, vendor, job, or account), dollar amount, and a key metric (like days past due). Click anywhere on the row to expand it and see:
- Action Recommendation — AI-generated, specific to this item. Not generic advice — it references your actual numbers and suggests what to do.
- Dashboard Link — A blue link that opens the relevant Metabase dashboard pre-filtered to this specific entity. You go straight to the data.
- Detail Records — An expandable table showing the underlying invoices, cost lines, transactions, or accounts that make up this alert.
- Positive Signals — Recent good news related to this item (e.g., “$5K collected last week” or “3 invoices paid”).
Ignore, Snooze, and Dismiss
If an alert is something you are already aware of or do not need to see right now, you have options:
- Snooze 2 weeks — Hides the item for 14 days, then it comes back.
- Snooze 1 month — Hides for 30 days.
- Remind in 10 days — Quick snooze button.
- Dismiss permanently — Hides this item forever (you can always undo).
Dismissed items appear grayed out at the bottom of each section with an Undo button if you change your mind.
Dashboard Links
When you expand an alert and click the dashboard link, it opens your Metabase dashboard in a new tab, pre-filtered to the specific client, vendor, job, or account. You go directly from the AI alert to the full interactive data. If the dashboard is not yet installed for your company, the link goes to the DataXcel shop where you can add it.
6. Your Feedback — What Would Make This More Useful?
This is the most important part of today’s session. For each area of the briefing, we want to hear from you:
When you click into the data for each category, what would be most helpful to see? What additional reports, drill-downs, or views would make this more actionable for your team? What would make you say “this saves me real time every week”?
We are building new dashboards and reports based on your feedback. Here are the dashboards currently available that connect directly to your AI alerts:
| Category | Available Dashboard | What It Shows |
|---|---|---|
| AR | Service AR Dashboard | Client-by-client aging, collection history, payment trends |
| AP | Open AP Dashboard | Vendor aging, payment history, bill detail |
| WIP | Over/Under Billings Dashboard | Job-by-job WIP schedule, billing vs. earned revenue |
| PM | PM Oversight Dashboard | Job status, backlog, timecard analysis, profitability by PM |
| Budget | Budget & Committed Costs Dashboard | Budget vs. actual by job, department, and cost code |
| BS | Balance Sheet Dashboard | Account balances, trends, month-over-month changes |
| P&L | Income Statement Dashboard | Revenue, expenses, margins, period comparisons |
The more dashboards you have connected, the richer your AI alerts become — you can click straight from an alert into the full data to investigate and take action.
Want more frequent updates? The standard briefing runs weekly every Monday. We can also set up daily or bi-weekly updates if your team wants more real-time alerts. Let us know what cadence works best for your workflow.
7. Show and Tell
Now it’s your turn. Let’s open your live briefing and walk through it together.
- Open your briefing — Navigate to your Metabase homepage or CEO Briefing dashboard.
- Look at your top 3 critical items — Expand each one. Read the AI recommendation. Does the score feel right? Is the recommendation useful?
- Click into a dashboard link — Does the pre-filtered view show you what you need?
- Try the ignore/snooze feature — Pick an item you are already aware of and snooze it. Did it behave as expected?
- Check the Wins section — Do the positive items feel accurate? Are there wins the AI is missing?
Discussion questions:
- Are the urgency scores reasonable? Too aggressive? Too lenient?
- Are the AI recommendations specific enough to act on?
- What is missing that would make the biggest difference?
- Is the weekly cadence right, or would you benefit from more frequent updates?
8. Sage Setup Deep Dive
The Sage Setup category is unique. Instead of linking to a Metabase dashboard, each alert links to a step-by-step help article that walks you through exactly how to fix the configuration issue in Sage 100 Contractor.
Here are the help articles currently available:
| Issue Type | What AI Detects | How to Fix It |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs Without Budgets | Active jobs with costs posted but no estimate entered | How to set up job budgets |
| Missing Cost Codes | Cost codes used on jobs but not in the master list | How to configure cost codes |
| Vendor & 1099 Issues | 1099 vendors with “Undetermined” type or missing tax ID | How to set up vendors & 1099s |
| Unmapped GL Accounts | GL accounts without a proper category/group mapping | How to map GL accounts |
| Employee Setup Gaps | Employees missing position, department, or pay class | How to set up employee records |
| Unassigned Jobs | Jobs without a supervisor or salesperson assigned | How to assign job supervisors |
Beta Tester Feedback: Is the Sage Setup section helpful for your team? What other configuration topics should we add help articles for? Are there Sage setup issues you run into regularly that we should detect and alert on?
9. What’s Next — Subscribe and Keep Your AI Briefing
Thank you for participating in this beta program. Your feedback directly shapes what we build next.
To keep your weekly AI briefing running:
- Subscribe to the CEO Weekly Briefing — Automated AI analysis across all 10 categories, delivered to your Metabase dashboard every Monday.
Add dashboards to get the most out of your alerts:
Each dashboard connects directly to your AI alerts. When the AI flags an issue, you click straight through to the full interactive data. The more dashboards you add, the more actionable every alert becomes.
- Service AR Dashboard — Client aging, collections, payment trends
- Open AP Dashboard — Vendor aging, payment history
- Over/Under Billings Dashboard — WIP schedule, billing variances
- PM Oversight Dashboard — Job status, backlog, profitability
- Budget & Committed Costs Dashboard — Budget vs. actual
- Balance Sheet Dashboard — Account balances, trends
- Income Statement Dashboard — Revenue, expenses, margins
Interested in more frequent AI updates? Daily briefings are available for companies that want real-time financial monitoring. Ask us about daily or bi-weekly cadence options.
Questions? Reach out to your DataXcel account team or email us at support@xcel.software.
This training guide accompanies the recorded beta tester training session. Both the recording and this article will be included as reference material for all CEO Weekly Briefing customers.