Unlocking business potential with custom reporting

With businesses generating thousands of pieces of digital data every day, reports provide the vehicle to unlocking insights that elevate business performance.  

Arguably, reporting days for employees can sometimes feel like an accountability exercise, a tool generated then provided to their boss to be read later.

A time-consuming exercise 

A common annoyance with reporting is due to the time, resources and tools needed to collate and analyse data into a meaningful presentation of information.  

In turn, businesses look to create efficiencies and invest resources into internal systems that refine data input and accuracy of reporting. But unfortunately, once the reporting goal has been achieved, little time is spent interpreting and extracting the underlying meaning within the data.  

The word ‘report’ has evolved into a generic term for any format of data being extracted from your software system. However, generic reports are only the tip of the iceberg, with much of the critical information and trends lying beneath the surface. 

Know how to use them… 

Knowing how to utilise the power of custom reports and deploying insights can drive operational efficiencies and transform businesses to new heights.  

This article will uncover the potential of custom reports, the type of custom reports, and the primary obstacles that block the potential of custom reporting. 

How custom reports create endless opportunities for your business. 

Each business’s processes are unique to themselves, requiring unique custom reports to simplify the complexity of operations. Custom reports provide the tools to organise the chaos of daily activities and streamline information flow, providing businesses with actionable insights. There are three primary reasons companies invest in custom reports:  

1. Increase Profitability 

Custom reports can increase profitability by their’ ability to enable effective planning and target core business outcomes. Many businesses focus custom reports on three pillars (custom experience, business efficiency and employee efficiency) to unlock operating and growth opportunities.  

2. Drive Business Competitiveness  

Leveraging custom data allows businesses to tailor operations and service delivery to meet the preferences of their customer base. Driving additional value to the customer experience with bespoke solutions, new products, and services put businesses ahead of the competition.  

3. Improve Employee Collaboration & Morale   

Improved evidence-based decisions lead to improved collaboration and streamlined processes. Integrated tools and knowledge sharing democratises data increasing the speed of issue resolution allowing employees to be the most effective and share knowledge resulting in improved teamwork and upskilling.  

How to transform general reports into well-constructed custom reports. 

Let’s look at the reporting basics and how various techniques can transform reporting into valuable information.  

• Export Report: This is the process of taking information from a system and reconstructing data into meaningful information. Depending on the capability of your system, raw data can be converted into excel or word documents to showcase trends through pivot tables or create customisable mailing lists for marketing purposes. However, businesses improve reporting accuracy and time efficiency with inbuilt capabilities to format data into graphs and tables without manual intervention or shifting data from one program to another.  
• Report Presentation: Depending on the meeting requirements, if using paper records to present your data for management or owner meetings, utilising colour graphics, charts and diagrams can improve the readability and persuasiveness of the data. Likewise, during live electronic presentations, drill-downs and hyperlinks enhance the level of detail and speed of information.  
• Sage CRE desktop home page: Custom crystal reports can streamline staff directories with automated staff names, locations and phone numbers.  
• Email Notices: A crystal report coupled with email software such as PDF-eXPLODE has been traditionally used to send vendors their payment remittance advice. However, businesses can take advantage of functionality to customise information with specialised reminders and programmed distribution based on business requirements.  

What are the obstacles to unlocking the value of customised reports? 

Although most businesses strive for improved reporting, two common obstacles can impact the value of analytics within an organisation.  

1. People & Process Challenges: The lack of proper reporting skills, insufficient IT support and compliance concerns are often barriers to the value of data extraction. Without the right tools and infrastructure, the process of extracting value from reports can be riddled with problems and pose significant risks to the health of a business.  
2. Reporting Capability: Without automated data integration, the time required and specialised skill to delve beneath the data trends can be particularly challenging. Combining data from different sources and platforms poses risks to data integrity and accuracy, leading to incorrect business decisions.  

Tools, people and processes underpin the success of democratised data and accelerated learnings to improve business outcomes.  

Integrating your data tools can simplify processes and eliminate efficiencies.  

Businesses that harness customised data prevent the loss of customers, increase market share and decrease security risks.  

The team at Thrive have over 25 years of experience in the construction industry and know how to maximise value from construction software tools. Our team will assess your business’s needs and pain points to recommend, implement and train the right solution to accelerate the value of data analytics within your company.  Call us now on 1300 868 474.