business-pulse

# Business Pulse One prompt, one page. Pull live data from every connected tool, synthesize it into a single scannable brief, and surface the single most important thing to act on today. Do the work — don't ask the user to help find the data. ## Step 1 — Pull data in parallel **Dispatch all connector calls in a single parallel batch** — see `reference/data_sources.md` for the exact tool-to-metric mapping. Do not pull serially; latency turns a 30-second skill into a painful wait. Connectors to attempt simultaneously: - **QuickBooks** — cash balance, MTD revenue, outstanding receivables, overdue invoices - **Xero** — same ledger read for Xero shops: cash position, receivables, P&L trend - **Zoho Books** — same ledger read for Zoho shops: bank balances, invoiced revenue, overdue invoices (no P&L endpoint, so the revenue line is invoiced revenue and says so) - **PayPal / Square** — 7-day settlements, sales trend, failed/pending transactions - **Stripe** — settlements and sales trend, failed payments, and any new disputes — a fresh dispute goes straight to the watch list (if connected) - **Ramp** — company card spend for the week and the account balance, read-only (if connected) - **Gusto** — next payroll run date and amount, the week's biggest cash commitment (if connected) - **TikTok Ads** — last week's ad spend, results, and cost per result, so paid spend shows up next to the sales it claims to drive (if connected) - **Expensify** — last week's card spend and any expenses missing receipts, read-only, so spending surprises surface before the month-end scramble (if connected) - **HubSpot** — pipeline by stage, deals moved/closed, deals gone cold, new leads - **Google Calendar** — key meetings, deadlines, events this week and next 7 days - **Gmail or Microsoft 365** — threads flagged urgent, customer complaints, time-sensitive requests - **Slack / Teams** — urgent internal signals, threads needing owner attention - **RingEx Chat** — the same internal-signal read for RingEx shops: urgent team-chat posts needing the owner (if connected) - **DocuSign** — envelopes sitting unsigned, flagged once they are more than a few days old — money waiting on a signature (if connected) - **Zoho Desk** — open tickets, escalations (if connected) - **Shopify** — orders, revenue, sales trend, and fulfillment issues, so a commerce business sees its actual day (if connected) - **Square** — fulfillment issues (if connected) If a connector errors or returns no data, record it internally and move on. Never block the pulse on a single bad integration. **QuickBooks fallback**: if QBO returns an unexpected state (account not connected, sync pending, empty response), mark the Cash section "n/a — QuickBooks unavailable" and proceed. Do not retry or ask the user to reconnect. **Gmail fallback**: Gmail auth is intermittently flaky. If the call errors, skip the Watch List section silently and note "Gmail unavailable" in the appendix — do not surface an error mid-pulse. **Nothing connected at all is a supported path, not a failure.** If every connector is unavailable, don't stop and don't tell the owner to go connect things. Ask once, in one short message, for the handful of numbers that carry the pulse: - Cash in the bank right now, and roughly what it was a week ago - Anything overdue — invoices owed to them, bills they owe - Sales this week versus a normal week, even roughly - Anything already worrying them this week Build the same one-page pulse from those answers, label the source line "owner-supplied, not pulled," and skip any section they had no number for. If they'd rather not type numbers, point them at the siblings that run off a file export instead — `cash-flow-snapshot` and `report-builder` both take a CSV — and say plainly that gives a partial picture, not the full one. ## Step 2 — Compute metrics Read `reference/thresholds.md` for red/yellow/green cutoffs. Compute: - **AR aging** — open QuickBooks invoices grouped by days since due date (0–30, 31–60, 61+) - **Pipeline coverage** — HubSpot weighted pipeline ÷ monthly revenue target - **Revenue trend** — this month's QBO revenue vs. prior month (or 7-day PayPal/Square vs. prior 7 days) Assign a 🟢/🟡/🔴 status to each section. If a source returned nothing, mark the metric "n/a" and note it in the appendix. ## Step 3 — Flag risks proactively Scan for actionable items. Every risk entry must name a specific record and a next step — "some overdue invoices" is useless; "USD 3,400 from Acme Corp, 47 days overdue, no response since Mar 12" is actionable. - Ledger invoices past due > 30 days — name customer, amount, days overdue - HubSpot deals with no activity in 7+ days, or close date in past but still open - Mail threads marked urgent or containing "escalation," "complaint," "cancel," "refund" - Failed or pending PayPal/Square/Stripe transactions above the threshold in `reference/thresholds.md` (200 in the business's currency) ## Step 4 — Compose the output Use the exact template in `reference/output_template.md`. Include only sections where real data exists — omit headers for connectors that weren't available. Adapt depth to context: a casual "how are we doing" gets a fuller report; "quick snapshot before a call" gets a tighter one. Cross-connector synthesis is where this skill earns its keep. If a Slack message connects to a stalled HubSpot deal, surface that link in the #1 Priority section. Synthesis is what makes the pulse more useful than checking each tool separately. Writing rules: - Numbers lead, words follow. Never write "revenue is healthy" — write "USD 43k this month, ▲ 8% MoM" and let the owner judge. - Every number carries a delta vs. the prior period where available. Absolute snapshots (cash balance) still show WoW delta. - Names and dollars, not adjectives. "USD 4,200 from Acme, 23 days overdue" beats "some concerning receivables." - No filler. If a section has nothing worth reporting, write "No material changes" and move on. ## Step 5 — Deliver the pulse page Alongside the chat pulse — never instead of it — deliver the full pulse per the owner's stored output preference — never default to a markdown file. Check the `## Business context` block's `Output preference` (shared style guide rule, `../../shared/artifact-style.md`): - **Visual artifact (the default):** render the pulse as an HTML page in the house style. Cash balance, MTD revenue, and weighted pipeline are stat tiles with their deltas as context lines; each section's 🟢/🟡/🔴 becomes a status pill (good, warn, critical); the watch-list risks are a table with tabular-nums amount columns; the #1 Priority gets its own panel at the top; unavailable connectors go in one quiet appendix line. - **docx / md / notion / canva preference:** deliver the same content in that form — a DOCX or markdown file, a Notion page created via the connector (named destination, never overwriting), or a Canva Doc created via the Canva connector (a new design each run, named with the date; tables become lists); fall back to the visual artifact if Notion or Canva is not connected — and say that is why. - **Best for skill:** use the visual artifact — a pulse is scanned, not filed. ## Step 6 — Export and share (once) After presenting the pulse, offer once: - "Want me to save this as a file?" (use Files connector if available — this means a copy in their drive, not a second HTML download beside the artifact) - "Should I post this to your Slack?" (only if Slack is connected and the user confirms — Slack write requires explicit approval) If they say yes, do it. If they say no or don't respond, move on — don't ask again. ## After the run Close with one line on what the pulse covered, then the single most relevant next step and at most two others nearby: - If cash or AR flagged red: "who owes me money" runs `invoice-chase`. - If growth questions dominate: "is my marketing working" runs `growth-pulse`. - To make this recurring: "Monday brief" runs `/monday-brief` every week. Max three offers. Never repeat an offer the owner declined this session. ## Scope variants The owner may ask for a narrower cut: - **"Just cash" / "financial check"** → only Cash & Finance + AR-related risks - **"Pipeline only" / "deals check"** → only Pipeline section + stalled-deal risks - **"Watch list" / "anything urgent"** → only Watch List + all risks, no metric sections - **"Quick snapshot before a call"** → TL;DR + #1 Priority only, no full sections ## What not to do - **Do not ask permission before pulling data.** If the skill was invoked, run it. Asking "should I check QuickBooks?" defeats the whole point. - **Do not invent or estimate numbers.** If a source returned nothing, say "n/a" explicitly. Never fill a gap with guesswork. - **Do not skip the delta.** A number without a comparison is a missed insight. If there's no prior-period baseline, say "(no prior baseline)" rather than omitting the field. - **Do not surface connector errors mid-pulse.** Log them to the appendix. The pulse leads with what was delivered. - **Do not trust a QuickBooks summary object.** Expenses, margin, and AP aging buckets come from the rows or the detail call (`../../shared/quickbooks-report-traps.md`). ## More sources, and scheduled presets Read `reference/v2_sources.md` for the mapping: - **Shopify** — orders, revenue, and fulfillment status, so a commerce business sees its actual day in the pulse - **Any ledger** — MYOB, NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, or Zoho Books feed the Cash & Finance section; they are peers (`../../shared/connector-neutrality.md`). With two connected, the owner names one as the source of record for totals The pulse still builds from whatever is connected and degrades gracefully — one connector gives a partial pulse, the full stack gives the full picture. ### Scheduled presets This skill is schedulable, and the preset decides the shape: | Preset | When | Shape | |---|---|---| | Monday | Start of week | Full pulse, forward-looking. What's coming and what needs attention | | Friday | End of week | Recap. What moved, what closed, what slipped | Scheduling is a property of this skill, not a reason for a separate command. Offer a cadence once, after a pulse the owner found useful. Don't ask twice. ## Reference files - `reference/data_sources.md` — exact connector tool → metric mapping with fallbacks - `reference/thresholds.md` — 🟢/🟡/🔴 cutoffs, tunable per owner - `reference/output_template.md` — exact markdown structure; do not deviate - `reference/gotchas.md` — known failure modes (QB states, Gmail auth, Slack write) ## Using a tool that isn't listed The connectors named in this skill are the tested paths, not a wall. If the owner wants this flow to use a tool that isn't connected or listed, offer `build-connector` — it checks the connector directory first and connects through Zapier otherwise, never hand-building against a raw API. Once the connection exists, the tool joins this skill like any other optional connector, under the same approval gates.