Built By Data โ Complete User Manual & Operations Guide
This guide covers every page, module, calculation engine, and workflow across the Built By Data ecosystemโfrom sub-2ms multi-dimensional ERP slicing and retroactive Back-to-Dollar-One vendor rebates to General Ledger P&L tie-out and hybrid ERP data synchronization.
Website & Platform Architecture Overview
The Built By Data web property consists of four purpose-built web applications hosted on a global edge network with sub-millisecond response times:
/index.html)Public landing page for wholesale distribution executives. Includes the interactive BI Software TCO & ROI Calculator, ERP connector showcase, architecture comparison, and consultation booking form.
/app.html)The full interactive BI workspace containing 8 core modules: Slice & Dice Grid, Custom KPIs, Executive Dashboards, Financial Statements (P&L), Multi-Level Vendor Rebates & SPA, RLS Governance, Hybrid Sync Agent, and Schema Modeler.
/one-pager.html)A clean, single-page executive summary designed for PDF export or physical distribution at wholesale buying groups and trade shows.
/manual.html)This searchable, printable reference manual providing step-by-step instructions for every module, formula, and administrative control.
Sign-In, Role Switching & Users / Row-Level Security (RLS)
Every query in Built By Data is automatically governed by Row-Level Security (RLS). Users only see the branches, sales territories, and financial statements permitted by their roleโwithout needing separate report copies.
How to Sign In or Preview Role Security:
- Login Modal Quick-Role Preview: When opening
/app.html, click any of the 3 instant role cards at the bottom of the sign-in screen (or use the Role Switcher dropdown in the top header at any time):- ๐ CFO / Org Admin (Tommy Piggee): Unrestricted access to all 44 National Wholesale Supply branches, full General Ledger P&L statements, Vendor Rebate contracts, and Admin ETL settings.
- ๐ข Branch Manager (Dallas Fort Worth / BR-01): Automatically locked to their assigned branch warehouse(s). Can view branch sales, purchasing, and inventory, but cannot view other branches' confidential margins.
- ๐ค Outside Sales Rep (SLIK / Account Rep): Automatically locked to their assigned customer accounts and invoices (`SLIK`). Financial statements and administrative modules are hidden.
- Managing Permissions in Module 6 (RLS Matrix): Click ๐ Row-Level Security (RLS) in the left sidebar to inspect or toggle user rules by Branch Code, Salesperson Code, Vendor Access, and P&L visibility.
Global Controls, Time Intelligence & Ask Data AI Copilot
Located in the top-left header bar. Switch instantaneously between 5 synchronized ERP data streams:
- Sales Invoices (Nov 2026 Live): Customer billing, COGS, GP$, GM%, Price Override codes.
- Purchasing & PO Receipts: Vendor PO receipts, Direct vs. Stock, lead times.
- Inventory & GMROI: On-hand value, stock turns, dead stock, GMROI.
- AR Aging & Credit: Current, 30/60/90+ day past-due balances by customer.
- General Ledger (GL): Chart of accounts postings tied to sub-ledgers.
Located directly below the KPI ribbon in the Slice & Dice workspace:
- 1-Click Period Presets: Switch between
LIVE,MTD,QTR,YTD,R12(Rolling 12 Months),FYTD, andWTD. - Custom Calendar Pickers: Select any exact
Start Date โ End Dateand click Apply Range. - Active Date Basis Selector: Choose which ERP date drives the numbers (Invoice Billing Date, Order Entry Date, Ship/Delivery Date, GL Posting Date, AR Due Date, or PO Receipt Date).
- โ New Date Type Button: Register custom ERP date fields (e.g., Warranty Start Date or Rebate Accrual Period) with Fiscal Year offset and 4-4-5 / 5-4-4 calendar rules.
Type plain-English distribution questions into the prompt bar or click the quick-action pills:
- "Show me Manual Price Overrides (Code = Y) across all 44 branches" โ Automatically filters the grid to override lines to expose margin leakage.
- "Show me top Outside Sales Reps ranked by Ext Sales" โ Switches dimension to Sales Rep and sorts descending.
- "Switch to Purchasing DB and rank top Ship-From Vendors" โ Switches stream to Purchasing and ranks vendors.
Dimensional Drill-Down Grid (Sub-2ms Slice & Dice)
The Slice & Dice Grid allows non-technical users to drill across millions of ERP invoice and PO lines in under 2 milliseconds without writing SQL or waiting for cube refreshes.
Step-by-Step Progressive Drilling Workflow:
- Pick Your Starting Dimension: Click any dimension tab above the grid:
Branch,Sales Rep,Ship-From Vendor,Buy Line,Price Group,Customer,SKU / Product, orInvoice / PO Line. - Select One or Multiple Rows: Click a row (or check multiple checkboxes on the left of the rows, such as Branch
1 - FTWand18 - CLEBURNE) and click ๐ฏ Focus Selected. - Pivot to the Next Dimension: Click another dimension tab (e.g.,
CustomerorSKU / Product). The grid immediately recalculates to show only the customers and SKUs sold inside your focused branches! - Breadcrumb Filter Bar: Active filter chips appear above the grid so you can remove individual filters or click Reset All at any time.
Period Comparison Modes & Transaction Audit:
- Period Mode Switcher: Toggle the grid columns between:
- Standard View: Orders, Qty, Ext Cost, Ext Sales, GP$, GM%, YoY ฮ%.
- Variance vs. Prior Year: Highlights exact dollar and percentage growth or contraction vs. Prior Year.
- 3-Month Rolling Trend: Compares Sep, Oct, and Nov side-by-side.
- Share of Total %: Shows each row's percentage contribution to company revenue and profit.
- Right-Click Transaction Audit: Right-click (or click the ๐ icon on) any row to open the Sub-Ledger Invoice & GL Audit Drawer showing the exact invoice numbers, customer POs, Price Override codes (
Y = Manual Override,C = Contract), and GL postings.
Interactive Visual Chart & Dynamic Top-N Studio
Positioned directly above the Slice & Dice Grid, the Interactive Visual Chart Studio automatically synchronizes with every dimension switch, time preset, and row filter.
Switch between Bar + GM% Combo, Horizontal Ranking, Pareto 80/20 Cumulative Curve, Stacked Revenue vs. COGS, Smooth Area Trend, Donut Share Mix, Margin vs. Volume Scatter, and Hierarchical Treemap.
Slice by Top 5, Top 10, Top 15, Top 25, or All items, and rank by Ext Sales ($), Gross Profit ($), Gross Margin (%), Shipped Qty, or YoY Growth (%).
Clicking any bar, slice, or point in the chart immediately filters the underlying Slice & Dice Grid to that entity and drills to the next dimension. Click ๐ท PNG to download a presentation-ready image.
Multi-Level Vendor Rebates & Back-to-Dollar-One Studio
Standard BI tools fail on wholesale distribution rebates because they only multiply volume by a flat percentage. Built By Data's Multi-Level Rebate & SPA Engine handles every real-world manufacturer agreement across 3 flexible ingestion methods and 5 calculation engines.
Interactive UI builder where Purchasing & Finance teams select the Vendor, Calculation Engine, Exclusion Rules, and add unlimited Tier Brackets (Min $ โ Max $, Rate %, YoY Kicker %) with a live calculation sandbox.
Download the standardized Multi-Tier CSV Template, populate vendor brackets in Excel, and drag-and-drop to batch-import dozens of manufacturer SPA and volume contracts at once.
Syncs directly with ERP rebate tables (Epicor Eclipse SPA.CONTRACTS / VEND.REBATE.TIERS, Prophet 21, Infor SX.e) and reconciles accrued rebates against GL Account 5120-00.
The 5 Supported Rebate & SPA Calculation Engines:
| Calculation Mode | How the Math Works | Wholesale Distribution Use Case |
|---|---|---|
โก Retroactive Back-to-Dollar-One (RETRO_DOLLAR_ONE) |
Crossing a tier threshold (e.g., Tier 3 at $300K @ 6.0%) retroactively applies 6.0% to 100% of eligible purchases back to Dollar $1.00. Also computes the exact Next-Tier Cliff Unlock Bonus. | Annual vendor volume agreements (GE Appliances, Mueller, Bradford White) where hitting a cliff unlocks a massive retroactive payout jump. |
๐ Stepped Marginal Brackets (STEPPED_MARGINAL) |
Progressive tax-bracket style math: Tier 1 rate applies to the first $150K, Tier 2 rate applies only to volume between $150Kโ$300K, etc. | Manufacturers using progressive marginal banding to prevent cliff gaming at year-end. |
๐ Combined Gate + Split Buy-Line Rate (MIXED_FAMILY_SPLIT) |
100% of vendor volume counts toward unlocking the Tier Gate, but payout rates split by product family (e.g., Commodity Pipe capped at 2.5% while Fittings & Valves earn 6.5% back to Dollar $1). |
Plumbing/PVF vendors (Charlotte Pipe, Uponor) where commodity pipe helps unlock the tier gate for high-margin fittings. |
๐ YoY Growth Gate + Kicker (YOY_GROWTH_GATE) |
Applies the unlocked Back-to-Dollar-One base tier rate plus an automatic +1.0% to +2.0% growth kicker when Current Year volume beats Prior Year by โฅ 5%. |
Co-op & growth programs (Milwaukee Tool, Bradford White) rewarding year-over-year volume expansion. |
๐ท๏ธ Customer / Job SPA Claimback (SPA_DEVIATED_COST) |
Tracks deviated job cost recovery (Standard Cost - Approved SPA Cost) ร Shipped Qty or contract claimback rate on specific customer jobs. |
Commercial contractor quotes and municipal waterworks bids with manufacturer price support. |
In the Contract Wizard, you can independently control Gate Volume vs. Net Payout Volume:
โข Exclude Customer SPA & Manual Override (`Y`) from Payout (Count in Gate Only): Prevents double-dipping on discounted job lines while still counting those purchases toward unlocking your $500K Back-to-Dollar-One tier threshold.
โข Click ๐งฎ Audit Math on any contract: Opens the Bracket-by-Bracket Math Inspector showing Gate Vol, Net Eligible Vol, Stepped Marginal vs. Retroactive Dollar-One payout, and the exact purchasing dollars needed to trigger the next cliff jump.
Financial Statements (P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow & GL Tie-Out)
Built By Data unites operational sales analysis and General Ledger financial reporting in a single workspace.
- 3 Full Financial Statements: Toggle between Income Statement (P&L), Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement.
- Branch P&L Slicing: Filter the Income Statement by individual branch warehouse or region to compare Gross Margin, Vendor Rebate Accruals (
GL 5120-00), Payroll, Warehouse Rent, Fleet Expense, and Net EBITDA. - 1-Click GL Sub-Ledger Tie-Out: Click any General Ledger account row (such as
4010-00 Gross Product Salesor5120-00 Vendor Rebate & SPA Accruals) to open the GL Sub-Ledger Audit Trail at the bottom of the screen, showing the exact journal batches (JNL-2026-...) and invoice postings that make up that balance.
Price Override & Profit Audit, Custom KPIs & Saved Views
Code = Y)Automatically isolates all 3,329 manual counter/rep price overrides ($847K in Nov 2026 sales) versus Matrix (N) and Contract (C) pricing, with an interactive Margin Recovery Simulator slider.
Create custom calculated columns using ERP fields (e.g., (Ext_Sales - Ext_Cost + Accrued_Rebate) / Ext_Sales for True Pocket Margin %) and bookmark 1-Click Saved Views.
Configure automated daily or weekly PDF/Excel email packets delivered to Branch Managers and Sales Reps at 6:00 AMโautomatically filtered by each recipient's RLS permissions.
Executive Command Center & Role Scorecards
The Executive Command Center provides instant visibility into company-wide Sales, Purchasing, Price Override leakage, and Top Branch / Vendor rankings:
- Live KPI Scorecards: Track November 2026 Sales (
$1.26Macross 10,000 invoice lines), Purchasing PO Volume ($4.61Macross 6,138 PO lines), Active Branches (44), and Manual Price Override alerts. - 1-Click Drill-to-Grid: Click any Branch, Outside Sales Rep, or Ship-From Vendor card on the Executive Command Center to jump straight into the Dimensional Drill-Down Grid filtered to that entity.
Data Sources: Hybrid Sync Agent, Cloud Connectors & Scheduler
Built By Data combines the reliability of an on-premise task-scheduled extractor with modern zero-maintenance cloud connectors across three ingestion paths:
bbd-sync-agent.exe)Lightweight Windows Service or Task Scheduler CLI that lives on the customer's local ERP server (`Epicor Eclipse` Pick/Universe, `Prophet 21` SQL Server, `DDI Inform`). Extracts incremental deltas (WHERE LAST_MOD_TS > @Watermark), compresses to Parquet/Zstd, and pushes outbound over HTTPS Port 443โzero inbound firewall ports required.
Zero-install OAuth 2.0 / REST / Webhook connectors for cloud ERPs (`Infor CloudSuite Distribution CSD`, `Oracle NetSuite`, `Snowflake`, `BigQuery`, `QuickBooks Online`) with 5-to-15 minute incremental sync.
Drag-and-drop CSV/Excel budgets, vendor price sheets, or SPA spreadsheets directly in the browser or automate via SFTP watch-folders.
Designer (Column Mapper & Custom ERP Schema Modeler)
When onboarding a new ERP table or custom flat file, administrators use the Custom ERP Schema & Data Modeler to classify each column as a Dimension (Branch, Rep, Vendor, Buy Line, Price Group, Customer, SKU), a Measure (Ext Sales, Ext Cost, Qty, Accrued Rebate), or a Date Key, and validate Star-Schema joins before publishing to the live grid.
Main Marketing Website, Executive One-Pager & Internal CRM
/index.html)Features the interactive Wholesale BI Savings Calculator (enter user count and branch count to calculate annual licensing savings), ERP migration overview, and lead capture form wired directly to Cloudflare KV and email notifications.
/one-pager.html)Formatted for single-sheet printing (Ctrl+P) to leave behind with wholesale distribution CEOs, CFOs, and VPs of Purchasing.
/crm.html)Tracks live human website traffic, prospect pipeline stages, email outreach sequences, and inbound demo requests.