3PL Reporting Dashboard: Turning Raw Warehouse Data Into Decisions That Matter

Reporting fails when your 3PL only shows you the highlights

Most brands do not leave a 3PL because of one bad day. They leave because they were never given the full picture. A single PDF each week or a vague summary in a monthly call is not real reporting. Research shows that modern operators expect real time reporting dashboards that reflect what is happening inside the warehouse every minute. Without a true 3PL reporting dashboard, teams are left making decisions based on stale or incomplete information.

When reporting is delayed, patterns stay hidden. Customer service cannot see what is slowing down orders. Operations cannot pinpoint where time is being lost. Finance cannot rely on inventory counts. Leadership is forced to rely on updates that do not match customer reality. Many brands who arrive at G10 describe a reporting experience that kept them guessing instead of guiding them.

As Maureen Milligan said, "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements. So we've seen a lot of people come disillusioned by their last 3PL, where their orders weren't getting fulfilled in time, their inventory accuracy was not there, and they were not able to satisfy customer orders." A 3PL reporting dashboard exists to prevent this kind of disillusionment.

A reporting dashboard must be driven by real time operational data

A 3PL reporting dashboard is only as good as the tracking beneath it. If a warehouse only records the end of each task instead of the full journey, reporting becomes too shallow to be useful. Real reporting requires event-level detail.

Bryan Wright explained the kind of operational history that powers meaningful reporting when he said, "Absolutely. We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking. It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock. At 8:10, John picked it up and took it to location XYZ, and at 10 o'clock, we picked two items off of that pellet in the location 1, 2, 3, 4, order, you know, ABC, and at 11 o'clock, we packed it, we put it in this box and put this label number on it, and all the way through the process onto the truck and to the customer." A 3PL reporting dashboard built on this level of detail gives teams confidence that they are seeing the full story, not a curated one.

When a dashboard can access this kind of data, it stops being a scoreboard and becomes an operational guide. It answers the questions teams actually ask: where orders are slowing, where labor is most effective, and where inventory is drifting.

Scan-based workflows keep reports accurate and trustworthy

Reporting dashboards depend on accurate data. If workers can skip scans, use paper workflows, or move product without recording the action, the dashboard becomes unreliable. That is when operators stop trusting the numbers and start relying on gut feel.

As Connor Perkins said, "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper. You can lose a lot of money in this industry by you know having people ship stuff wrong, or store it wrong, and now it's lost somewhere. So having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." Good reporting depends on that same standard.

Connor also explained the consequences of poor discipline when he said, "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLSs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL wasn't great at picking the orders accurately. So they were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." A 3PL reporting dashboard brings these issues to light early, but only if the underlying data is captured correctly.

A reporting dashboard belongs in a real time customer portal

A 3PL reporting dashboard should not be something you see only during a quarterly review. It should be available on demand, inside a portal, where teams can check performance anytime without waiting for a custom export or emailing their account manager.

As Maureen said, "We're in the last stages of developing a new portal that will give customers real-time visibility to their on-time order fulfillment, inventory accuracy, and even inventory levels so that they can monitor those things directly in our systems. They'll have visibility to what the statuses of their orders-are they getting processed as they expect?-and things like that." That is what a real 3PL reporting dashboard should deliver: direct, immediate access to operational truth.

She also said, "A lot of the 3PL customer expectations are that order fulfillment is happening extremely timely, that our inventory is accurate, that we're able to execute on their orders very quickly, and get them shipped the same day. So what these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." A reporting dashboard makes that visibility practical, not theoretical.

Connor added further context when he said, "Our clients get best-in-class visibility and transparency. They can see their daily orders, they can see KPIs, and they can see historical transactions. They can look at a daily level or go into the more granular version where they're looking at transactional history on an item." A strong reporting dashboard sits on top of that architecture.

He also said, "You have easy access to reporting and you can export to Excel, or really any format that you like you know directly from our WMS portal." Reporting dashboards should give users both visibility and flexibility.

Reporting dashboards turn small operational signals into proactive decisions

Most operational failures start as small shifts in performance. A picking zone slows down. A wave begins to fall behind. A carrier arrives early or late. Without a dashboard, those weak signals stay hidden until they become real problems.

With a strong 3PL reporting dashboard, leaders can see early signs of trouble and act before customers feel the impact. They can adjust staffing, investigate exceptions, change priorities, or fix process issues while the day is still salvageable.

As Maureen said, "We will take in your inbounds, we will get them received and reported back to you within our SLAs, and oftentimes more quickly than what we contracted for. We will ship your orders out the day they're required. And our inventory accuracy is generally right there at that 99.7% that we agreed. So that's one of the areas where we really do excel, and where we've been able to win business." A reporting dashboard helps maintain this level of consistent execution.

Reporting dashboards rebuild trust after bad 3PL relationships

When brands leave a 3PL, the biggest complaint is often a lack of transparency. They were told that everything was fine while issues piled up. They received reports that contradicted what their customers were experiencing. A true reporting dashboard helps rebuild trust through shared visibility.

As Maureen said, "For customers who have come to us from a bad 3PL relationship, they experience relief. They're suddenly seeing their business scaling, that the data supports what we agreed to, and then the trust begins to build." Reporting dashboards accelerate that trust by showing consistent, verifiable performance.

The 3PL reporting dashboard is now non-negotiable

High-growth brands cannot depend on slow reporting or opaque performance metrics. A 3PL reporting dashboard provides the clarity, speed, and detail they need to run their operations with confidence. It turns noise into insight and assumptions into real numbers.

As Connor said, "This is one of our strengths. G10 is on the cutting edge for this kind of transparency and feedback for clients." A reporting dashboard is one of the clearest expressions of that transparency.

If your 3PL reporting leaves you asking more questions than it answers, it is time for a dashboard that shows the truth in real time and gives your teams the clarity they need to move forward with confidence.