The Report That Takes a Day
Should Take No One’s Time.
Every week someone exports from three systems, pastes into a spreadsheet, fixes the formulas that broke, and sends the numbers out late on Friday. We build reporting that pulls the data on a schedule, applies the same definitions every time and is ready before anyone asks.
Signs This Is Costing You
A day lost to exports
Building the report means downloading files from several systems and stitching them together.
Two numbers for one metric
Sales and finance bring different revenue figures to the same meeting, and the meeting is spent reconciling them.
Only one person can build it
The report depends on one person’s spreadsheet and memory. When they are away, it does not go out.
Decisions on old data
By the time the monthly numbers are ready, the month they describe is weeks behind you.
Formulas nobody trusts
A pasted row or a moved column breaks a formula, and nobody notices until a number looks strange.
Questions that wait
A simple question such as sales by region last quarter becomes a request that takes days.
What It Actually Costs
The time spent building the report is only the visible part. Late or inconsistent numbers also cost decisions. The arithmetic below counts only the time.
- 1 person
- doing the work
- 360 minutes
- each time
- 1 time a week
- across everyone
- $55 an hour
- loaded cost per person
About 6 hours a week, or $15,180 to $17,160 a year
Try It With Your Own Numbers
Wages plus taxes and benefits. $40 is a common starting point.
Estimated annual cost of this work
$9,200 to $10,400
About 260 hours a year
An estimate from the numbers you entered, not a quote and not a promise of savings. Automation rarely removes every minute of a task.
Show Us This WorkflowHow We Automate It
Automating a report that nobody agrees on only produces the wrong number faster. So the definitions come first.
Agree the definitions
We write down what each figure means, where it comes from and which system is the source of truth when two disagree.
Connect the sources
Data is pulled from each system on a schedule through its API or exports, into one place you own, instead of by hand.
Check before publishing
Missing data, sudden jumps and failed pulls are flagged, so a broken report is caught before it is sent.
Deliver where you work
The finished report arrives by email, in a shared dashboard or in the spreadsheet your team already uses, on the schedule you choose.
Before and After
An illustration of a common workflow, not a client project.
On Friday the operations lead exports sales from the store platform, payments from the processor and hours from the scheduling app, then spends the afternoon building the weekly summary.
The summary is assembled overnight from all three systems using written definitions. On Friday morning it is in everyone’s inbox, with a note on any source that failed to update.
Is This the Right Report to Automate?
A good candidate
- The same report is built on a regular schedule
- Its inputs come from systems that can export data
- People make decisions from it
- The steps to build it are the same every time
Probably not worth it yet
- It is built once or twice a year
- Its contents change completely each time
- Nobody can say what the key figures mean
- The source data is mostly on paper
Typical Starting Points
Work is priced by scope, not by the hour. You get a written scope with a fixed price before anything starts, and larger builds are split into milestones. The ranges below show where engagements typically start.
See Starting Prices
| Engagement | When it fits | Investment |
|---|---|---|
| Automation Opportunity Review | You know the workflow hurts, but not yet what, if anything, to build: one workflow reviewed, with the smallest worthwhile fix in a written action plan. | $495 fixed fee |
| Quick Win Automation | One tightly bounded problem with a clear finish line. | From $1,500 |
| Core Automation or Integration Build | Workflows and system connections the business runs on, priced in a written scope. | From $5,000 |
| Operations Automation Partnership | After a build: monitoring, maintenance, vendor and API changes, and small improvements. | From $750 / month |
Hosting, domains, licenses, subscriptions, and processing fees stay in accounts you own and are billed to you directly by each vendor whenever practical. Where we must place an approved charge on your behalf, that amount is collected before we incur it.
After the Build
Every build ends with documentation and a handoff, so your team can run it. If you would rather not, a monthly partnership covers monitoring, vendor and API changes, and small improvements under its own written agreement.
See Partnership LevelsServices and Decisions Behind This
Before You Ask
- Do we need to buy a business intelligence product?
- Not necessarily. Many recurring reports can be delivered by email or into an existing spreadsheet. Where a dashboard tool helps, we recommend one that fits the budget and put it in your account.
- What if our systems do not have an API?
- Scheduled file exports often work. If a system offers no export at all, that becomes part of the review, and we tell you what is and is not possible before quoting a build.
- Who decides what a metric means?
- You do. We ask the questions, write the definitions down and confirm them with the people who use the report before anything is built.
- What happens when a data source fails?
- The report says so. A failed pull is flagged rather than quietly producing a report with missing numbers.
- Can the report be changed later?
- Yes. You get documentation of how it is built. Small changes can be covered by a monthly partnership, and larger ones are scoped in writing.
Figures on this page are illustrations based on the stated inputs, not client results, and are not a promise of savings. We do not guarantee any particular business, time-saving or technical outcome. This page is a summary for convenience; our Terms of Service govern.
Full terms: Terms of Service
Which Report Eats Someone’s Week?
Tell us what goes into it, where the data lives and who reads it. We will tell you what automating it would take.