▤Reports in practice

For two different purposes that you should keep apart:

Internally: How are things going? Where is something being left lying? What has changed compared with the previous month? These reports are for you, may be rough and may contain all the figures.

Externally: What does the customer get out of the collaboration? These reports leave the building, are read and kept. They need a different standard.

In everyday work this means:

• An internal report may show that something is not working.
• A customer report must be correct, complete and contain nothing that does not belong in it.

The most common mistake: passing an internal report on to the outside with a few adjustments. Go through it fully beforehand — line by line.

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What they want to know — not what you are able to measure.

What belongs in it:

• What happened in the period, in figures and in one sentence.
• What came of it — conversations, introductions, placements.
• What is coming up.
• Where things are stuck, if the customer can contribute something.

What does not belong in it:

• Data of other customers. The most common and most serious mistake.
• Internal notes.
• Names of people who have not yet been introduced.
• Figures without a reference value. “47 contacts” says nothing; “47 of 60 planned” does.

That leaves the point that decides the effect: a report that only shows figures comes across as a justification. One that says what happens next comes across as work.

The one you want to report on — 30 days is usual, and that is the default.

What speaks for one month:

• Enough movement to say something.
• Short enough to remember.
• Fits most billing cycles.

When you should deviate:

• Shorter, if you are in a hot phase and the customer wants to be informed weekly.
• Longer, if the cycle is long and one month shows too little.

What you need to bear in mind: the period should stay the same across reports. Reporting once over 30 days and once over 45 produces figures that cannot be compared, and people notice.

And a practical tip: use whole calendar months if the customer is billed monthly. That saves queries.

Yes — and you should do so every time.

There is a preview that shows the report exactly as it reaches the recipient. What you check there:

• Are the figures plausible? A zero where there should be a number is a clue, not a result.
• Are umlauts and special characters correct? In generated documents this is a known source of errors.
• Does the layout fit? Breaks in the wrong place, cut-off tables.
• Is the sender correct? Name, address, contact person.
• Is there anything in it that should not be?

The last point needs the most attention and is the hardest to automate.

And if the preview is empty: then there is no data for the period. That says something about the data, not about the report.

Then the work has not been recorded where the report looks for it.

The most common causes:

• Activities have not been recorded on the record. A phone call that only took place in someone’s head cannot be counted.
• The period does not fit. The work happened before the reporting period.
• The assignment is missing. Contacts not assigned to the customer do not appear in their report.
• A filter in the report narrows things down more than intended.

How to proceed:

1. Pick out a known activity that falls within the period.
2. Check whether it is recorded in the system.
3. If so: check whether it is assigned to the right customer.
4. If not: that is the cause.

And the lesson from it: a report is only as good as the recording. If reports are meant to prove something, recording has to happen as you go, not be caught up on afterwards.

For six things, in this order, and the first two are the important ones:

1. Does it contain third-party data? Other customers, other candidates, other cases. If so: do not send.
2. Is the recipient right? The right person at the right company.
3. Are the figures right? A spot check is enough — recalculate one figure.
4. Is the text factual? No judgements you cannot back up.
5. Is the presentation right? Umlauts, breaks, tables.
6. Is the attachment the right one? If a document goes with it.

That can be done in five minutes.

And the one rule that carries everything: a report does not go out unread. Not even the twelfth one for the same customer — that one least of all, because that is where routine sets in.

Only if the basis has stayed the same — otherwise you are comparing two different things.

What has to stay the same:

• The length of the period.
• The assignment — which contacts count towards this customer.
• The way of counting. Does a conversation that led nowhere count?

What you should document: if you change something, record from when. Otherwise you will later be explaining a jump in the figures that never really happened.

What a comparison can show:

• Direction. More or less than the previous month.
• Patterns. Season, holiday periods, cycles.

What it does not show: whether you are doing good work. A month with fewer contacts but two placements is better than one with many contacts and no result.

So: take at least three periods before drawing a conclusion.

As a document attached, with a few sentences in the mail — not just as an attachment without a covering text.

The covering text needs three sentences:

1. Which period it covers.
2. What the most important point is.
3. What you plan to do next or need.

Why this matters: many recipients do not open the attachment straight away. The three sentences are what definitely gets read.

Important points:

• Always to the same person, unless agreed otherwise. A changing distribution list causes confusion.
• A meaningful file name — with the customer name and period, not “report.pdf”.
• A fixed date. A report that arrives on the fifth of every month is expected. One that turns up now and then is read like advertising.

And the sender: before the first send, check that the sender profile has been filled in completely.

Then the sender profile is missing or incomplete — it is stored in the system, not in the report itself.

What belongs in it:

• Company name, spelt correctly.
• Address.
• Contact person with phone and email.
• Logo, if applicable.

When this becomes noticeable: with the first report in a new installation — or after a transfer to another environment, if the profile has not yet been created there.

Our recommendation: create the profile before you need the first report. Noticing it two hours before a customer meeting is unnecessary stress.

And check it once a year: contact people change, and so do phone numbers. A report with a direct-dial number that no longer exists is more embarrassing than one with none at all.

Yes — as long as the data for it exists.

What this means:

• A report on last month: no problem.
• A report going back a year: only if the data from that time is still there and has not been deleted in the meantime.
• A report on a time before anyone worked with the system: not possible.

A few subtleties: a report generated afterwards reflects today’s state of the data for a past period — not the state at that time. If something has been deleted or changed since, the report looks different from how it would have looked back then.

Where this matters: when a report is meant to prove something. Then the report you sent at the time is the authoritative one — not the one you generate again today.

So: keep the reports you have sent.

You should, and in some cases you must.

Why keep them:

• A report can be the basis for an invoice. Then the retention periods for business records apply.
• It proves what you reported. In the event of disagreements, it is the point of reference.
• It shows the development and is the comparison value for the next report.

How: in the filing on the customer record, with the date in the file name. Not just in the sent folder of the mailbox — nobody will find it there in two years.

What you should also record: to whom and when it went out. That is in the mail, but the mail and the report are then in different places.

Exactly how long it has to be kept depends on what the report is — for documents relevant to billing it is usually several years. Clarify this with your tax adviser.

Within limits — logo, sender details and individual text snippets, not the structure.

What is possible:

• Your logo.
• Your sender details.
• Introductory and closing text.
• Which sections appear.

What is not easily possible: fundamentally changing the arrangement or adding your own analyses. That needs a customisation by the support team.

What to bear in mind when adjusting texts:

• Keep it short. A long introduction gets skipped.
• No figures in the text that also appear elsewhere. If one changes, the other does not change with it.
• Do not write anything that is not true every month.

The last of these is where reports become embarrassing: an introduction that talks about a phase long since over.

What to do depends on how serious the mistake is.

Transposed digits or a typo with no consequences: correct it in the next report, if at all. A correction mail for a trifle draws more attention than the mistake.

A wrong figure that matters: report it promptly, with a corrected report. Briefly, without beating about the bush: “An error crept into our report of … Please find the corrected version attached.”

Third-party data in the report: act immediately. Ask the recipient to delete the report, record the incident and check whether the supervisory authority has to be notified. The deadline for this is short.

What you do in every case: record how it happened, and add the corresponding checks before the next send.

What you do not do: hope nobody notices. With figures that are billed, somebody notices.