Setting Up Custom Alerts for Any Metric

AskBiz can create alerts for virtually any metric in your business data:

Revenue alerts:

• Daily revenue drops below £X
• Weekly revenue is more than Y% below the same week last year
• Monthly revenue on track to miss your target

Margin alerts:

• Gross margin falls below X%
• Any product's margin drops more than Y% vs last month

Customer alerts:

• A customer hasn't ordered in X days (and they normally order weekly)
• Repeat purchase rate falls below your target
• A new customer places an unusually large first order

Operational alerts:

• Return rate exceeds X% for any product
• On-time dispatch rate falls below 95%
• Stock level for any product drops below reorder point

Financial alerts:

• Cash balance drops below your minimum threshold
• An invoice becomes overdue by more than 14 days
• A supplier invoice is significantly above agreed pricing

Go to Intelligence → Alerts → Create Alert:

1. Choose your metric: search or browse the metric library. Metrics are grouped by category (Revenue, Margin, Customer, Operational, Financial).

2. Set your condition: choose the trigger condition (above, below, changes by more than X%, etc.)

3. Set your threshold: the value at which the alert fires

4. Set the lookback window: the period the alert evaluates (daily, weekly, rolling 30 days)

5. Choose your notification channel: in-app notification, email, or both. Business plan users can also route alerts to Slack or a webhook.

6. Name the alert: give it a clear name so you know at a glance what triggered it

7. Save and activate

Alerts run automatically on every data sync. You do not need to log in to AskBiz for alerts to fire — they send to your chosen notification channel regardless.

AskBiz supports two alert logic types:

Threshold alerts: fire when a metric crosses an absolute value

• Example: 'Alert me when daily revenue drops below £1,000'
• Best for: metrics with a clear minimum acceptable value

Change-based alerts: fire when a metric changes by more than a specified amount or percentage

• Example: 'Alert me when weekly gross margin changes by more than 5 percentage points vs last week'
• Best for: detecting sudden shifts that are abnormal regardless of the absolute level

For most business metrics, change-based alerts are more robust — they catch problems relative to your baseline rather than requiring you to set the right absolute threshold for every metric.

Go to Intelligence → Alerts → All Alerts to see all your active alerts with:

• Current status (active, paused, or triggered)
• Last triggered date
• How often it has fired in the last 30 days

Alert fatigue warning: If an alert fires more than twice per week, your threshold is too sensitive. Adjust it to reduce noise — an alert that fires constantly is ignored. Aim for alerts that fire occasionally but meaningfully.

Pause alerts temporarily when you know a metric will be off (e.g. you expect low revenue during a platform migration). Reactivate when normal trading resumes.

Review all your alerts quarterly — remove ones that are no longer relevant and add new ones as your business priorities change.