The week before the board meeting
The trustees meet next week and want visitor figures for the quarter. A funder wants a breakdown of visits by postcode area and age group for its annual report. The local authority wants numbers for free entry days. Each asks for something slightly different.
The figures sit in the ticketing system for paid visits, in a door counter for free entry, in the learning team's spreadsheet for school groups, in event ticketing for evening talks and in someone's notes for outreach sessions. The collections manager's research visits are in her diary.
Someone spends several days pulling it together. The totals do not quite match last quarter's report, because last time school groups were counted differently.
Why the figures are so hard to pull together
Attractions record visits in several systems, each designed for its own job. None was designed to produce the combined picture a board or funder wants.
Definitions drift. Does a school visit count each pupil or each group? Does a free event count if people did not come through the main gate? Are outreach sessions visits? If nobody writes it down, each report makes its own choice.
Funders often want breakdowns such as postcode or age that are only available for some visits, which means estimating for the rest, and the method is lost by next year.
What manual reporting costs
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Data in several systems | Days of work for every report |
| Definitions not written down | Figures that change between reports |
| Breakdowns rebuilt each time | Inconsistent funder reports |
| Door counts not linked | Free visits under- or over-counted |
| No single source | Trustees cannot trust the trend |
Funding decisions and board confidence both depend on these numbers being consistent and explainable year on year.
There is a people cost too. The report usually lands on whoever understands the spreadsheets, often someone whose actual job is learning, collections or marketing. Every quarter, that work stops for several days while the numbers are rebuilt.
One visitor dataset, many reports
We build a small reporting database that pulls visit data from each source every night.
- We connect to your ticketing, event ticketing, door counters and learning team records, through APIs or scheduled exports.
- We write down definitions with you, such as how school visits, events and outreach are counted, and apply them in code so every report uses the same rules.
- Postcode and age data is used where visitors provided it, and any estimate for the rest uses a method you approve and that is recorded with the figures.
- A dashboard shows visits by type, month and site, with trends against previous years.
- Report templates for your board, each funder and the local authority are produced from the same data, in the layouts they ask for.
- Each figure can be traced back to its source, so questions can be answered quickly.
Details we agree first
- How repeat visits by annual pass holders are counted.
- Whether visits to the café or shop only, without entering the galleries, count.
- How door counter readings are adjusted for staff and contractors, if at all.
- What happens when a source system is changed or replaced.
Board week afterwards
The quarterly report is ready from the dashboard. The funder's breakdown comes from the same data, using the same definitions as last year. When a trustee asks why school visits dropped, the answer is a click away.
- One set of visitor data from all sources
- Written definitions applied consistently
- Board and funder reports from the same numbers
- Figures you can trace and explain
Does reporting take over your week?
- Visitor figures come from several systems.
- Each report takes days to compile.
- Figures differ between reports for the same period.
- Definitions of a visit have never been written down.
- Funders ask for breakdowns you struggle to produce.