Flash Warehouse BI Dashboard: Data-Driven Monthly Business Analysis

Why Monthly Business Analysis Matters

For small and medium-sized warehouse businesses, the end-of-month review often hits the same bottleneck: data is scattered across spreadsheets, the purchasing team knows what came in, the sales team knows what went out, but getting a unified picture requires hours of manual consolidation.

The Flash Warehouse WMS BI dashboard solves this problem by design. After logging in to the PC management interface, the home page is the data dashboard -- all core business metrics visible at a glance. This article walks through each component and shows how to extend the analysis beyond the default weekly view using MCP tools.

The 6 Stat Cards: Your Business at a Glance

The top section of the dashboard displays 6 color-coded stat cards, each mapping to a dedicated backend API endpoint:

1. Total Inventory Value -- The aggregate value of all goods across all warehouses, in yuan. Endpoint: /bi/total/value.

2. Outbound Volume -- Total number of items shipped out via all outbound bill types. Endpoint: /bi/output/amount.

3. Inbound Volume -- Total number of items received via all inbound bill types. Endpoint: /bi/input/amount.

4. Maintenance Cost -- Aggregated from the reference_cost field on goods records. Endpoint: /bi/total/cost.

5. Accounts Receivable -- Outstanding amounts owed by customers, summed from cooperative partner records of type "customer". Endpoint: /bi/should/receive.

6. Accounts Payable -- Outstanding amounts owed to suppliers, summed from cooperative partner records of type "supplier". Endpoint: /bi/should/pay.

When a value exceeds 10,000, the frontend automatically formats it in "wan" (10k) units for readability -- for example, 1.25 wan yuan.

Weekly Value Trend: The Line Chart

The first chart row features a Weekly Inventory Value Trend line chart on the left. It plots two smooth area curves -- daily inbound value and daily outbound value -- across the current calendar week (Monday through Sunday). The chart is rendered with ECharts.

The backend endpoint /bi/io/price/line requires begin_time and end_time parameters. The frontend automatically calculates the current week boundaries and passes them in.

The key insight this chart provides: spotting anomalies at a glance. A sudden spike in outbound value might indicate a large order was fulfilled. Consecutive zero-activity days on the inbound side could signal a procurement bottleneck.

Category Distribution: The Pie Chart

To the right of the line chart sits a Category Distribution donut chart, showing the SKU count per warehouse as a proportion of the total. The system queries each warehouse for its distinct goods count and renders the result.

This helps identify concentration risk. If a single warehouse holds 80% of all SKU types, it may be time to consider inventory redistribution.

Inbound vs. Outbound: The Bar Chart

The second chart row contains an Inbound/Outbound Overview bar chart. Each day of the current week gets a pair of bars -- one for inbound quantity, one for outbound quantity. Data comes from two API calls: /bi/input/amount and /bi/output/amount, both with the week's date range.

This chart reveals the "breathing pattern" of inventory: a healthy warehouse should show balanced inflows and outflows over time.

Custom Date Ranges with the MCP Tool

The PC dashboard defaults to the current week. For a proper monthly analysis, you need a wider time window. This is where Flash Warehouse's MCP tools become essential.

The CLI tool fwh exposes 7 BI-related MCP tools. The most important for monthly analysis is bi_line_chart:

Tool: bi_line_chart
Parameters:
  - begin_time (required): Start time, format yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
  - end_time (required):   End time, format yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
Returns: [{date, input, output}] with one entry per day, including zero-activity days

Using It in Claude Code

After configuring the Flash Warehouse MCP server in Claude Code, you can request analysis in natural language:

"Show me the inbound/outbound value trend for May 2026."

Claude Code will call the bi_line_chart tool with:

{
  "begin_time": "2026-05-01 00:00:00",
  "end_time": "2026-05-31 23:59:59"
}

The response looks like this:

[
  {"date": "2026-05-01", "input": 12500.00, "output": 8300.00},
  {"date": "2026-05-02", "input": 0.00, "output": 0.00},
  {"date": "2026-05-03", "input": 45000.00, "output": 15200.00}
]

Zero-activity days are included (both input and output at 0.00) to ensure a continuous time axis for charting.

Using the CLI Directly

fwh bi line-chart --begin "2026-05-01 00:00:00" --end "2026-05-31 23:59:59"

Other BI Tools for a Complete Picture

A thorough monthly analysis can combine multiple tools:

When begin_time and end_time are provided, the date-range-aware tools return daily breakdowns instead of a single aggregate value.

A Monthly Analysis Checklist

Based on the features above, here is a step-by-step process for a complete monthly review:

Step 1: Review the summary. Open the PC dashboard and record the current values of all 6 stat cards. Compare them with last month's closing figures.

Step 2: Analyze trends. Use the bi_line_chart MCP tool to pull the full month of inbound/outbound value data. Identify peak days and low-activity periods.

Step 3: Investigate anomalies. For unusual spikes (e.g., outbound value 5x the daily average), use bill_list or bill_search to pull the specific bills from that date.

Step 4: Assess cash flow. Use bi_should_receive and bi_should_pay to evaluate the balance between receivables and payables.

Step 5: Check stock alerts. The dashboard's stock alert section automatically flags items below their configured thresholds. Confirm whether replenishment orders need to be placed.

Conclusion

The Flash Warehouse BI dashboard consolidates data from purchasing, sales, warehousing, and finance into a single view. The PC interface provides an out-of-the-box visual experience, while the MCP tools open up the same data to AI assistants for flexible, custom analysis. Together, they turn monthly business reviews from a half-day chore into a ten-minute routine.