PROBLEM
Updated on
EVERY MONDAY,THE SAME REPORT,REBUILT BY HAND
The real cost isn’t the hour. It’s the trust missing from the figure.
THE ANSWER
An automated weekly report from several data sources starts with three moves. I decide which indicators actually matter. I connect the sources once, then let the report update itself. That’s a dashboard: €2,000–€14,000, excluding VAT. Timing: two to six weeks. I check the numbers against your last manual report first.
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IN SHORT
Dashboards and reporting: €2,000–€14,000, excluding VAT.
Timing: two to six weeks, start to handover.
Above €8,000 it starts with a Definition Sprint.
I don’t move your sources: they stay put.
THE COST
WHAT REBUILDING IT WEEKLY COSTS
Rebuilding by hand has one visible cost. It has four or five invisible ones too. The invisible ones are the heavy ones.
Monday’s hour costs least
Downloading, pasting and fixing formats takes time. It’s the cost everyone can put a number on. It’s also the only one that stops growing.
The figure lands too late
Data read on Wednesday describes something nobody can still correct. The decision slips by seven days. Then it slips again the week after.
Nobody knows what it measures
The formula was written two years ago by someone who has left. It works, so nobody touches it. So nobody knows if it’s still true.
Two numbers, one meeting
Same question, two spreadsheets, two filters, two answers. Half the meeting goes on picking the right number. Not on deciding what to do.
It depends on one person
When they are on leave the report is skipped, or comes out wrong. That’s the clearest sign it isn’t a process: it’s a habit.
New questions stop being asked
When answering costs half a day of rebuilding, people stop asking. The real cost is the question nobody asks any more.
HOW IT GETS FIXED
THE WEEKLY REPORT BECOMES AUTOMATED
The order is not optional. Automating collection before deciding what to measure produces the same wrong report. Only faster, and with more confidence than it deserves.
I start from the decision
Who reads the report, what they decide after reading it, and how often. An indicator that changes no decision doesn’t make the cut.
I define each indicator
What it counts, what it excludes, where it comes from. This ends the argument about which figure is right.
I connect the sources once
Back-office system, CRM, spreadsheets, invoicing: each is read where it lives. It’s reconciled on the fields that tie everything together.
I sort the dirty data
Duplicates, names spelled three ways, rows with no date, amounts in different currencies. Before anything is calculated, we decide what happens to each. The rule stays written down.
I build the full view
Filters, table, export. Plus the screens for when a figure is missing or a source doesn’t answer. A dashboard that stays quiet when broken is worse than the sheet it replaced.
I check the numbers first
Before handover, I compare the automated figures with the last hand-built version. I explain every difference in writing. A difference I can’t explain means it isn’t ready.
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THE HANDOVER
WHAT YOU KEEP
Each indicator, defined in writing
What each one shows, what it excludes, where it comes from. That document keeps its value even if you change tools.
Your existing sources, connected
The systems you already use, read where they live. Nothing moves into somewhere new you’d have to trust.
The view: filters and export
Enough to look at a figure. And to look inside it, without asking anyone to redo the sum.
Empty and error states, handled
When a source doesn’t answer, the view says so. No blank screens, no total pretending to be complete.
The QA on the numbers
The comparison against your last manual report, difference by difference, written down.
Scheduled delivery
The report arrives where you already read things. (Email, chat, a page to open, at the hour you choose.)
THE TERMS
RANGE, TIMING, WHAT I NEED
- Offer
- Dashboards and reporting.
- Range
- €2,000–€14,000, VAT excluded. It moves with how many sources there are, how clean they are and how many views genuinely earn their place.
- Timing
- Two to six weeks, from defining the indicators to handover.
- Definition sprint
- It comes first above €8,000, with several integrations or sensitive data. Range €800–€2,000, VAT excluded.
- What I need from you
- Read access to the sources. And one person who can settle each indicator’s definition. Without that person, the dashboard ships with somebody else’s numbers.
- Monthly support
- Optional, €300–€1,000 for dashboards and reporting: monitoring, small updates and incident handling.
A dashboard nobody opens on a Tuesday is an expensive spreadsheet.
QUESTIONS
- Do I need a dashboard, or just automation?
- It depends on the question you’re asking. If it’s late but always the same, an automation is often enough: €1,500–€10,000. If the numbers aren’t trusted and questions change weekly, you need a dashboard: €2,000–€14,000. I tell you which one before quoting, not after.
- Do I need to change my systems?
- No. The sources stay where they are. Replacing a back-office system for a report is the most expensive way to solve the wrong problem.
- How many sources can be connected?
- As many as the report genuinely needs. But each extra one pushes the project up the range. They’re keys to reconcile, not rows to add. An undocumented source costs more. Sometimes it’s better left out — I say so early.
- What if the data is a mess?
- It usually is. Cleaning it up is half the job. You can’t automate a field nobody’s agreed how to write. First we set the rules — duplicates, drops, name spelling — then we calculate. The rules stay written, so they hold next week.
- Can the report stay a spreadsheet?
- Yes. The output can be a self-refreshing sheet, an email, or a page to open. The real difference sits upstream: the indicators and the sources. That doesn’t change with where you read the result.
- How long before it breaks?
- Until one of the sources changes. Logs and alerts flag which connection failed. The report doesn’t just go out with a piece missing. Fixing it is a short job. It’s why monthly support exists (optional, not compulsory).
If the same person always builds the Monday report, the risk isn’t the lost time. Nobody else could rebuild it. Tell me which figures you check each week. And where they come from today.