Nick Seferos

April 11, 2021

Reports are a waste of time

People generated reports are a complete waste of time. They take valuable time to generate and typically the recipient only wants one piece of information on the report and they could get it themselves. Worse, because 10 people need 10 different pieces of data, there’s temptation to create a “super report” which only takes longer to generate and longer to find that one piece of data the recipients are interested in.

Report preparers usually get the information from their databases graphical user interface - meaning all those reports could be automated. Most preparers don’t have the ability to make those reports automated. Reducing the preparers workload allows them to focus on production, not busywork.

What if the report didn’t exist? Most recipients don’t actually need any of the data in their reports. Yes, some data pieces are important to know and keep track of for financials and operations. Most are just fluff data points that create noise and distractions. Instead of generating reports and wasting time generating them, emailing them, reading them, and probably saving them in another spreadsheet, these key data points should be available on a dashboard so the recipient can review when it works for them.