This article will guide you towards making your reports more in-depth and rich in actionable insights. It’s a compact yet informative source of knowledge for business owners and operations staff alike. We expect to open your eyes to the aspects of reporting you’ve not previously known. And to stir you in the right direction by introducing you to business reporting software.
Running a business involves a huge amount of admin work. Regardless of the size or nature of your company, you’re required to take on a constant flow of admin tasks each day. Be it sorting payroll, generating invoices, paying your suppliers or managing employee absence and leave.
Naturally, every business has KPIs and targets to hit - otherwise, it would cease to exist. Each and every action carried out should be feeding into reaching these milestones. Both directly and through supporting other, progress-driven tasks.
This is why you need reporting - to keep track of whether the requirements have been met or not. But how does one assess the contribution of each day-to-day task towards that, especially if their contribution is indirect? Business software with reporting features is the answer.
Why is Business Reporting Important?
Business reporting allows you to look at the historical data of actions taken and what results they’ve bought. A thorough analysis then allows you to identify trends and patterns.
Based on these you can make future forecasts, plan ahead and focus on practices that have a proven record of success.
Benefits of Business Reporting Software
You would be right to think that reporting is a complex process. The areas of analysis to be put in a comprehensive summary (that is a report) are literally endless and highly dependent on your goals and KPIs. Collecting all the needed data manually can be very time-consuming. Just like the processes of segmenting and analysing it later. This problem has been recognised, and thus business reporting software has been created. Its aim is to streamline the process and support your growth.
Thorough Business Assessment
It’s humanly impossible to assess each component of your business in a timely manner. Specialised software, on the other hand, can collect, digest and visualise the data you need within minutes. One thing that’s left for you to do is to analyse the findings and decide what are you going to use them for. Budget allocation, process optimisation, the pursuit of new opportunities and many more decisions should be based on data reports. The more thorough they are, the better choices you’ll make.
Depending on the solution you use, you are normally in control of what metrics should your report include. Some platforms come with built-in templates, some allow you to customise to your specific needs. But either way, the automation of reporting allows you to access areas of the business you would sometimes not know could be analysed.
Clarity on Issues and Roadblocks
If you’re carrying out business monitoring and reporting on a regular basis, it will be much easier to identify problems before they escalate. If you only report annually, issues can easily be missed. They could then result in draining your time and resources for months without you noticing. Monitor a problem area by collecting and comparing data on the issue over time. This will enable you to identify its root cause. You can then work out how to fix the issue and improve.
Additionally, this enables you to foresee what kind of troubles may arise down the line, based on historical data. You will also be better prepared to deal with potential issues. Not only will you have the time to work out a solution but also be equipped with actionable data insights.
Reporting Shapes Future
While reporting is focused on analysing past initiatives and how they’ve reflected on your business, it is the foundation of the future. We’ve spoken about how rich data allows you to forecast potential threats. It also allows you to design the path your organisation follows.
Discovering Opportunities
While reporting can help to flag issues, it can also identify opportunities to expand. Reports are useful for recording past activity when expansion has proven a success. The data can then be used to identify future growth opportunities, what worked well and pinpoint what more can be done in the future. Regularly monitoring and reviewing competitors will help with this, too.
Treat reports as roadsigns and let them guide you. When you consistently monitor your numbers, you will begin noticing patterns. And then you will start seeing the gaps. This is where your opportunities can often be found.
Setting SMART Goals
If you report on company performance, you can compare performance over different time periods. The reporting objectives should match your KPIs as they prove if they’ve been met or not. Or if you’ve exceeded them. Whatever the results, identifying performance trends and where the company is can be used to set goals in future.
It’s important for your goals to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely - SMART. Most of the goals fail because they lack one or more of the components. Reporting equips you with data to base your goals on, and also the means of tracking your progress. In other words, the two go hand-in-hand, leading you towards business success.
Reporting Dashboards
One of the key selling points of SaaS technology is its visual reporting dashboards. Most solutions allow you to customise it to your specific needs, ranging from relevant metrics and time periods to visual representation. Instead of keying data in to generate charts or data summaries, they will be presented to you on-demand within seconds.
Multipurpose Business Reporting Software
If you’re looking for a thorough, all-in-one solution that can speed up and improve your business reporting, look no further. Timesheet Portal comes with more than 60 built-in reports, making it easy to find the data you need in the right format and structure. Some of the reports you can run include:
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Absenteeism reports. Calculate Bradford factor score, absence rates, etc.
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Employee utilisation reports for accounts that are project-based.
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Project budget over time. Track budget spend per week and month
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Consecutive days worked. Identify employees who have worked more than X days in a row
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Employee project matrix. All of your projects and staff in one simple matrix grid
Summary
Reporting is crucial for any business. It enables you to have a 360-degree view of how your actions affect different parts of your company, as well as highlights what processes are less than others and where the opportunities lay. Reporting can also help you with more accurate forecasts and risk management by compiling historical data in an easy-to-analyse visual format.
Consistent and thorough reporting habits drive business growth by becoming a data-infused foundation of the goals moving forward. However, in-depth reporting is time-consuming and human-error-prone, therefore diminishing its effectiveness. For this reason, we have multipurpose business reporting software - to give you thorough, actionable and accurate data on which to base your future success.
If you want to find out more about the features of Timesheet Portal and the benefits it can have for your business, we’d love to chat. Get in touch today.
