Most franchise networks struggle to answer basic performance questions. How many leads came in last month? Which locations followed up? Which stage is holding up deals?
Instead of answers, the data lives in spreadsheets, email threads, and CRM systems that weren’t designed to work across dozens of decentralized teams. That’s what Payroll Vault dealt with before switching to HubSpot.
Their old CRM, FranConnect, required corporate to build manual reports and chase down franchisees for updates. Dashboards didn’t reflect the sales process. There was no shared pipeline. Users didn’t trust the data. Most didn’t even log in.
The only way to get a full picture was to build it outside the CRM—which defeated the whole point.
What a Sales Dashboard Should Look Like
No Bounds Digital designed a HubSpot environment for Payroll Vault that made franchise reporting real-time and reliable. The goal was to show useful information at a glance so users could make better decisions without guesswork.
Each dashboard was purpose-built. Some examples:
- National overview dashboards showing volume and conversion trends across all franchisees
- Individual franchise dashboards tracking local lead quality, deal velocity, and follow-up rates
- Franchise onboarding dashboards monitoring adoption of the CRM and pipeline hygiene
- Lifecycle dashboards measuring movement between stages with timestamps
Every dashboard pulled from the same set of lifecycle stages, deal pipelines, and contact properties. That meant data could be aggregated across all locations or filtered down to a single office with no rework.
Why Reports Fell Apart in FranConnect
FranConnect didn’t allow for a single deal pipeline. Each franchisee had a siloed system, and corporate had no access to real-time data. Some used the system religiously. Others ignored it. Most weren’t sure what they were supposed to do in it.
To build a report, someone had to export raw data, email franchisees for clarifications, clean up property values, and then manually build pivot tables. This could take hours and still produce something outdated or inaccurate.
Key problems with FranConnect reporting included:
- Inconsistent use of properties and stages
- Manual data exports with no audit trail
- No ability to compare franchisee performance in real time
- Lag between activity in the field and visibility at corporate
As a result, reports didn’t drive action. They created frustration.
How HubSpot Fixed the Reporting Gap
The HubSpot build standardized the data model. Every franchisee worked within a shared pipeline. Each lifecycle stage and deal property was defined during implementation with input from both corporate and field teams. Data was validated at import, and automations kept things clean.
More importantly, the reports themselves were treated as products. They weren’t just built—they were tested with users, iterated based on feedback, and deployed with training so everyone knew how to use them.
With this setup:
- Corporate leaders could track national trends in real time
- Franchisees could see their own numbers without needing help
- Deal bottlenecks became easy to diagnose
- Sales conversations focused on improvement, not reconciling data
The Result: Insight Without the Spreadsheets
After moving to HubSpot, Payroll Vault stopped relying on spreadsheets to understand their business. Reporting went from a chore to a source of value. Franchisees checked their dashboards because they were useful. Corporate stopped running ad hoc reports because the answers were already there.
If you're spending more time building reports than acting on them, your CRM isn’t doing its job.
Schedule a call if you're ready for sales reporting that actually helps your franchise grow.
