Board Reporting That Answers Questions Before They Are Asked

Consistency beats comprehensiveness

The most useful board pack is the one that shows the same measures, in the same order, every month, so trends are visible and the discussion is about direction rather than about format.

Packs that change shape each month prevent comparison and consume the meeting explaining what has changed about the reporting.

What belongs in it

1. One page of headline numbers with comparison to plan and to last year
2. Cash — position, runway and forecast, which is what non-executives worry about most
3. Leading indicators — pipeline, enquiries, capacity, churn signals
4. Commentary on variances, written by someone who knows why
5. Decisions required, stated explicitly at the front rather than implied at the back
6. Risks, with what has changed since last month

Automate assembly, write the commentary

If your finance team spends three days building tables and an hour writing commentary, the ratio is backwards. The tables should assemble themselves; the commentary is the part that requires a person.

Pulling from accounting, CRM and operational systems into a fixed template is a well-defined project and usually pays for itself within a year on time alone.

Include the leading indicators

Financial statements describe the past. Non-executives increasingly ask what is coming, and pipeline coverage, enquiry volume, capacity committed and churn signals answer that.

Adding them also changes the meeting: less time explaining last month, more deciding about next quarter.

Send it early enough to be read

A pack distributed the night before is skimmed in the meeting. Three to five days ahead means people arrive with questions, which is the point of having a board.

Automated assembly is what makes early distribution possible without heroics.

Be honest about bad numbers

Packs that present difficulty carefully cost credibility when the difficulty becomes undeniable. Show the number plainly, explain what happened, and say what is being done.

Boards forgive bad results considerably more readily than they forgive being surprised.

Frequently asked questions