10 signs that your reporting is costing you too much

☐ Someone spends more than half a day a week compiling exports.

Paid time spent copy-pasting instead of analysing.

☐ The same figure (revenue, margin) differs from one file or department to the next.

Meetings are spent reconciling instead of deciding.

☐ Only one person is able to update the main file.

One holiday or one departure, and the reporting stops.

☐ Formulas break with every new month, new product or new row.

Every manual fix is a risk of error.

☐ You discover budget versus actual gaps only at closing.

Too late to act on the month just gone.

☐ To get an up-to-date figure, you have to ask someone for it.

Decisions wait on one person's availability.

☐ You cannot drill from the total down to the detail (customer, product, sales rep) without rebuilding a file.

Simple questions go unanswered.

☐ Prices, discounts or rates are recalculated by hand.

A typing error ends up on the invoices.

☐ Data comes from several applications and is reconciled by hand.

Gaps appear, and nobody knows where they come from.

☐ Nobody can say for certain which figures are reliable.

Decisions are made on data people doubt.