Automated Reporting
Software
Management reporting becomes unreliable when finance and operations rebuild the same measures from different exports. We connect the sources, define each measure once and record the checks and distribution around every report.
Connect the sources
Use agreed rules
Produce the report
Your team uses consistent reporting rules each month.
Connected
AGREED DATA SOURCES
Defined
MEASURES WITH NAMED OWNERS
One report
DEFINED END TO END
Why manual reporting costs more than it looks
A weekly report can require several exports, adjustments and checks before anyone reads it. The effort is easy to miss when it is spread across finance and operations.
We record how each figure is calculated and reconcile it with its source. Differences such as invoiced revenue versus recognised revenue need an agreed definition before the report is automated.
That gives the first build a clear scope: one report, its inputs, its checks and the people responsible for approving it.
MONDAY-MORNING REPORTING
- Someone exports CSVs by hand
- VLOOKUPs nobody else understands
- Three teams, three definitions of revenue
- Broken pipeline, nobody notices until Friday
- Report arrives Tuesday, decisions made Monday
AUTOMATED REPORTING
- Sources connect once, sync every hour
- Metrics defined in one place, named and tested
- Everyone reads the same number for the same word
- Checks run on every refresh, alert if numbers look wrong
- Inbox at 07:00 Monday, signed PDF in the board pack
What an automated report needs
Sales pipeline, cash flow, ops KPIs, the FCA Consumer Duty board pack, the HMRC quarterly update. The wiring is similar. Once you can see the parts, you can build them once instead of rebuilding them every week.
Sources
Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, Stripe, GoCardless, HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, your operational database. Connected once, kept in sync. No more weekly CSV runs.
Warehouse
Postgres, BigQuery or Snowflake, depending on size. One place every number lives. Your warehouse, your rules, your data.
Metrics
Revenue, gross margin, churn, utilisation. Defined once in dbt or SQL, named, tested. The same word means the same number across finance, ops and the board.
Checks
Did the sync finish? Are this week's numbers within tolerance of last week's? Any rows missing? If something looks wrong, the system pages someone before the report goes out.
Delivery
Choose the format and destination your team uses, such as an emailed PDF or a dashboard. We set the schedule, retain the output and alert an owner if generation or delivery fails.
How we take it into live use
The source systems vary by company, but the work is familiar: collect the figures, reconcile them, calculate the metrics, publish the report and flag exceptions.
Fixed-scope phases, working reports, you own the warehouse and the code. We can hand it to your team or keep it running for you.
BOOK A REPORTING AUDITReporting audit
We inventory the reports, sources, definitions, recipients and manual effort. Finance and operations agree which report should become the controlled first version.
Plumb the warehouse
Connect Xero, Sage, HubSpot, Stripe, your ops database and anything else that holds a number you care about. Land it cleanly in Postgres, BigQuery or Snowflake. dbt models for the metrics. Tests on every pipeline.
Launch the first report
We start with the agreed board pack, cash forecast or operations report. Your team compares it with the current process before the automated version takes over.
Add further reports
Further reports can reuse verified sources and definitions. Each has its own checks, recipients and approval rules, with records of the data used to produce it.
Reports we can automate
These are illustrative reporting briefs. Source access, calculations, delivery times and approval rules would be agreed for each build.
Recruitment board pack.
Bullhorn, Xero and a placements database into one Monday PDF. Margin per consultant, fee run-rate, time-to-fill, debtor days. The report arrives at 07:00 with the checks already run.
Manufacturing cash forecast.
Sage 200, Unleashed, GoCardless and HSBCnet feeds into a rolling 13-week cash view. Sales, stock, direct debits and bank balances in one place.
FCA-regulated adviser report.
Outcomes data across price and value, products and services, consumer understanding and consumer support. Pulled from the back-office, reconciled, ready for the board's annual Consumer Duty review.
The report has to live beside the work
Digbeth Events combines booking, revenue and team measures in its operations dashboard. Leo Associates keeps project, supplier and finance records together so reporting does not start with several exports.
When this is worth discussing
We work best when there is a real operating problem, enough volume to measure and people from the affected teams who can make decisions.
Usually a good fit
- An established UK business, usually with annual revenue above £10m
- A repeated process with a known cost, delay, error rate or capacity problem
- A senior sponsor and a day-to-day owner who understand the work
- Access to the relevant staff, systems, sample records and security requirements
We may point you elsewhere
- A standard product already covers the process well
- The requirement is a one-off small build with no wider operating case
- There is no owner or access to the people and data needed to test the result
- The plan relies on AI making high-impact decisions with nobody responsible for review
Questions before connecting the systems
Would Power BI or Tableau be enough?
Yes. The main scope still needs to cover source connections, agreed definitions and monitoring when a sync fails. The reporting interface can then be Power BI, Metabase, a custom Laravel page or a scheduled PDF, depending on licensing and user needs.
We already have dashboards nobody opens.
Most companies do. Dashboards die when the numbers don't match what people see in the source systems, or when the dashboard exists but the decision still gets made off an exported CSV. We start by working out which reports drive a Monday-morning conversation, and we automate those. The unused ones get retired, not migrated.
How long does the first report take?
Timing depends on the sources and whether teams agree the definitions. Standard APIs are faster to connect than legacy systems, but the larger risk is automating a measure that finance and operations calculate differently.
Can the AI just write the report?
AI can draft commentary from approved figures, with a person reviewing the claims and explanation. Calculations should use tested formulas or queries. We keep the underlying figures available so reviewers can check the narrative against them.
Where does the data live?
Your warehouse, on your cloud account. Postgres for small footprints, BigQuery or Snowflake when volumes justify it, all UK or EU region by default. You hold the credentials. We can host it for you, or hand it over to your team and walk away.
What does it cost?
The audit is fixed-fee. A first report is scoped against the sources, definitions and delivery method. Later reports and support are quoted separately, while warehouse running costs depend on volume, refresh frequency and retention.
What if a pipeline breaks at 03:00?
We monitor refreshes and alert the agreed owner when a source fails or data is stale. Reports can be held or labelled as delayed. Reconciliation and sampling remain necessary because automated checks cannot detect every incorrect figure.
Who owns the code?
You do. That includes the repository, warehouse and dbt models. Every metric is a named SQL model your team can read, edit and extend.
Talk to us about the report you keep rebuilding
Send us the current report, its sources, recipients and monthly effort. We will identify the first report worth automating and the data definitions that need agreement before work begins.