The problem
The client wants a monthly report in their format. The board wants the weekly figures. The numbers for both already exist: in the job sheets, the timesheets, the accounts package and a spreadsheet somebody keeps. They are just not in the report. So somebody opens all four, copies the figures out, re-types them into the template, and checks that the totals add up, which they do not the first time because one of the four was updated after the others.
The report goes out late because the person making it was on site, or on time because they did it on Sunday. When a client asks a question about a figure, the answer means going back to the four sources and doing the work again.
The cost is the afternoon it takes each time, and the errors that come from re-typing. Some reports are quietly dropped because nobody was free to make them.
The report is assembled from the sources on the day it is due, in the client's format, without anyone re-typing a figure.
Every figure in the report can be traced to the row it came from, so a client question is answered by looking, not by rebuilding.
The person who used to spend the afternoon making the report reads it instead.
What it does
The monthly pack in your format, built from data that already exists in your job sheets and systems, read by a person before it goes out.
The build pulls the figures from where they already are: the job system, the timesheets, the accounts package, the spreadsheet. It puts them into your template, or the client's, with the same headings, the same order and the same wording as the last one you sent. Totals are worked out from the rows, not typed. Where the report has a written section, the build drafts it from the figures, in plain words, for a person to rewrite or keep.
The finished draft goes to a named person with a list of anything that looks off: a figure that has moved a long way from last month, a job with hours but no invoice, a source that had not been updated when the report was built. That person reads it, changes what they want, and sends it.
Who it suits
A business that makes the same report more than once a month and loses a person for an afternoon each time. The report might be a pack per client or the weekly figures. It suits work where the figures already exist in some system, even a spreadsheet, and the work is moving them into the right shape.
It suits less well where the report is different every time, or where the figures do not exist anywhere until somebody works them out. In that case the report is not the problem, the record-keeping is, and the audit will say so.
What it needs from you
One recent report, the version that actually went out, and where each figure in it came from. Not where it is supposed to come from: where the person who makes it actually looks. Access to those sources, arranged so a person can withdraw it. And the list of things the person who makes the report quietly corrects every month, because those corrections are rules the build has to know.
The sources will disagree with each other. The timesheets say one thing and the job system another, and the person who makes the report has been picking one for years without telling anyone. The build has to be told which, and that conversation is the audit. Somebody's spreadsheet is load-bearing. It is usually the one that reconciles the other three.
Signature to live: from 4 weeks, depending on the size of the job.
What it does not do
It does not send a report on its own. A person reads every one first, permanently, because a wrong figure in front of a client costs money. It does not change the figures. If the source data is wrong, the report is wrong, and it will say which source it read so the fix goes in the right place. It does not decide what the report should say about a bad month.
It does not know that a figure is wrong for a reason only the person who runs the jobs understands, and version one will present something as normal that they would have flagged. The parallel run puts the built report beside the hand-made one for as many months as it takes your team to trust it, and the hand-made one is what goes to the client until then.
This is an Assembles build. It gathers figures from the places they already live and puts them into the report for a person to read. It does not check a job for gaps, and the written section it drafts is a small part of the whole.
Assembles One route, signature to live: from 4 weeks, depending on the size of the job and the state of your data. We'll tell you on the audit.
Where it sits in the process
Reporting is one route, built on its own. The free 10-minute call tells you whether it fits and gives you a rough estimate: a range for the first route, not a quote. The paid audit looks at your real documents and your real data, works out what the work costs you a year in your own figures, and writes down what to build first. The fixed price for the build comes from the audit, with three options that cut scope rather than corners. Then the data check, the build, the parallel run, go-live and training, and monthly running. All nine stages are on the About page.
Related systems
See it running: read the case study.