The first week of every month, gone
For the first week of each month, your analysts build client reports. For each client, they export consumption from one place, costs from the bill tracker, contract dates from the CRM and open queries from a spreadsheet. They paste it into a workbook, refresh the charts, copy the charts into a slide deck, update the text, check the numbers and save a PDF.
It is careful work, and it is almost all copying. The part clients value, the analyst's view of what changed and what to do about it, gets squeezed into the last hour before the report goes out.
Why reports take so long
The data behind a client report lives in several systems, and the report template was designed around manual assembly.
- Consumption, costs, contracts and queries are held in different places.
- Each client's report has slightly different sections and sites.
- Charts are rebuilt or refreshed by hand.
- Numbers are checked by eye against their sources.
- Any late data means rebuilding part of the report.
The more clients you have, the longer the first week of the month gets.
Analyst time spent copying, not thinking
Reports are often how clients judge a consultancy between renewals. When they are late, inconsistent or thin on insight, clients notice. Yet the time needed to produce them leaves little room for the commentary that makes them useful.
Manual assembly also introduces errors: last month's chart left in, a site missed, a number pasted into the wrong cell. Each error undermines confidence in the rest of the report.
Reports assembled from your data
We build report generation on top of the data you already hold.
- Your report template is recreated with the sections you use: summary, consumption by site, costs, contract position, bill validation, open queries and anything else your clients expect.
- Each section is fed from its source: meter data, bill records, the contract register, the query tracker.
- For each client, the report is generated for their sites and contracts, with charts drawn from the data, in your branding.
- Checks run before a report is released: missing data for a site, a month with estimated bills, figures that differ sharply from last month.
- A draft commentary can be suggested from the changes in the data, using a model such as Anthropic Claude or OpenAI, for the analyst to rewrite and approve. Nothing goes out without a person's edit.
- Reports are published as PDFs, sent by email or placed in a client portal, and a record is kept of what was sent.
| Part of the report | Built by hand | Generated |
|---|---|---|
| Consumption and costs | Exported and pasted | Drawn from your data |
| Charts | Refreshed in Excel | Drawn automatically |
| Contract and query status | Copied from other systems | Read from the register and tracker |
| Checks | By eye | Run before release |
| Commentary | Written in the last hour | Written with time to think |
The commentary and advice remain your analysts' work. The generation handles the assembly.
A first week spent on insight
On the first working day of the month, drafts for every client are ready, each with checks flagged. Analysts review the data, fix any gaps and spend their time on the commentary: why consumption rose at one site, what the renewal timetable looks like, what the open queries mean for the client.
Reports go out earlier and more consistently. When a client asks for an extra section, it is added to their template once, not rebuilt every month.
Are reports eating your month?
- Analysts spend days each month building reports.
- Data is copied from several systems into Excel.
- Charts are refreshed and pasted by hand.
- Errors have reached clients in reports.
- Commentary is squeezed in at the end.