Reporting

At D2K, reporting is the core of our business. All other other products and services are designed to underpin a capacity to deliver first rate Data Reporting Solutions for better decision making.

Design

Your management reports need to look good, they need to tell a story and they need to speak for themselves. We don’t present you with a jumble of numbers and ask you to find the gems buried within.

When working on design aspects of reporting we consider:

  • Format – how is this report going to be delivered?
  • Audience – who uses this report and how?
  • Layout – how we can we help users draw useful conclusions without overloading them with a sea of information?
  • Key Performance Indicators – what are the most critical aspects of your business and how can they be analysed and monitored most effectively?

Delivery

Using current technology, the options for report delivery are endless – and affordable! Considerations for delivery options include:

  • Does the report need to be live – ie do users need to be able to interact with the report?
  • Where are the users based and do they need information provided remotely?
  • Should we schedule reports to run automatically or will users rely on self service?

We have a range of tools available to us to support the generation and delivery of these reports. In particular, Crystal Reports and SQL Server Reporting Services are both excellent pieces of technology that may be applicable in defferent circumstances. In addition, Microsoft Excel can also be a very useful reporting tool, particularly as an interim development tool to demonstrate the value of improved reporting.

The development of Management Dashboards can represent a quick win in terms of helping you focus on the few key things that are really critical to your capacity to manage your business. Your Management Dashboard is a one page (or less) summation of the key daily issues within your business at any point in time. Typical items to be included in a Dashboard (depending on the nature of your business) would be:

  • Sales – budget and actual
  • Accounts Receivable including aging and overdue items
  • Cash balances
  • Stock breakdowns including high level analysis and aging
  • Sales and activity forecasts

Dashboards can take many forms and be delivered in several ways depending on your requirements and systems. Examples would include:

  • As an MS Excel spreadsheet or pdf emailed to you or automatically stored in a nominated folder from where you can retrieve it
  • Via a browser interface, potentially supported by Microsoft Sharepoint and/or SQL Server Reporting Services
  • Printed to a nominated printer